To the above I have little to add. I have not been able 
to detect any orientation of the leaves in the Kew cultivated 
specimens, but these not being planted in a good exposure 
all round, are out of court as witnesses. On the other 
hand, when traversing the prairies with Dr. Gray, in 1877, 
I watched the position of the leaves of many hundred 
plants, from the window of the railway car, and, after some 
time, persuaded myself that the younger more erect leaves, 
especially, had their faces parallel. approximately to the 
meridian line. JI may mention that I, on the same occasion, 
convinced myself that the flower-heads of various of the 
great Helianthoid Composite, that grew in hosts on the 
prairie, did follow the sun’s motion in the heavens to a very 
appreciable degree,—their morning and evening positions 
being reversed. ‘This observation did not, however, extend | 
to the Compass Plant, the rigid stout peduncles of whose 
flower-heads would not be expected to favour such a 
motion. 
Though never before figured in any English work, the 
Compass Plant has been for many years in cultivation in 
Kew, where it forms a very striking object, growing eight 
feet high, and flowering profusely in August and September 
in the Herbaceous ground. In the United States its range is 
from Michigan and Wisconsin, westward to the Rocky 
Mountains, and southward to Texas and Alabama.—J.D. H. 
Fig. 1, ray-flower ; 2, stigmatic arms of ditto; 3, scale of the receptacle; 4, disk- 
flower; 5, stamen of ditto; 6, stigma of ditto; 7, scale of receptacle from disk ; 
8, vertical section of receptacle ; 9, portion of leaf-margin:—all, but figs. 1, 3, 4, 
7, and 8, enlarged. 
