VOL: II. ] Botanical Reminiscences. 5 
duced. This impression was confirmed by the statement of the 
Mediterranean origin of the genus, in Endlicher’s Genera Planta- 
rum whieh, with a few volumes of Linnza, formed at that time my 
whole botanical library and probably all the accessible botanical 
literature of California as well. 
The date of my first interview with Lavatera in San Francisco is 
fixed in my mind by the cholera epidemic that devastated the city 
in the last months of 1850. I observed the plant exactly two Sun- 
days before the Sunday on which my first cholera case occurred. 
The hard work and excitement incident to the epidemic, the great 
conflagrations and the Vigilance Committee materially interfered 
with my biological observations, but in regard to Lavatera I recol- 
lect distinctly that the little garden spot, near Kearny street, re- 
mained the only locality in which the plant was seen, nor did I in 
my field excursions ever strike the garden in the Mission Dolores 
from which the plants in Mr. Tittel’s garden originated. No special 
‘search was made, however, for the reason above given. 
‘In the year 1853 I left for a visit to Europe and returning in 1854 
found the aspect of the surroundings materially changed in regard to 
vegetation; the inhabitants having to some extent given up their mi- 
gratory habits had taken to embellishing their homes, and especially 
in the suburbs little garden spots with introduced ornamental plants 
had become numerous. The marshes and the luxuriant vegetation 
of their borders were nearly intact, but the impenetrable thickets 
of Ceanothus thyrsiflorus which originally covered the dry hills 
between the city and the Presidio had been much thinned out and 
the nearer ones entirely destroyed. The ground thus laid bare 
had not been cultivated; most of it was rather poor soil, apparently 
_ intended by nature to grow houses rather than grain, and in the 
interim furnished a home for luxuriant masses of the milk-thistle 
nub Silybum : marianum) not a single specimen of which had been seen 
ie during my previous residence. The clear brooks covered with a 
mossy vail of Azolla had changed to muddy pools filled with Cotula 
_ coronopifolia (called by the children ‘‘brass buttons’’), hiding a 
liquid of the color and consistence of café au lait. Lavatera was at 
this time generally employed as a hedge about the gardens, but as 
I had witnessed the sudden invasion of South Australia by the 
- Silybum: and Cotula mentioned above I considered the spread of 
_ Lavatera an analagous circumstance and only wondered that I 
- never found specimens away from the gardens. 
