124 Naturalized Plants. [ ZOE 
Solanum rostratum, whose horned spinescent leaves and fruit make 
it one of the most pestilent of weeds. Unhappily it has obtained at 
least a start at the salt works in Los Angeles county, where it was 
collected some six years ago by Rev. J. C. Nevin. I have not been 
able to learn how well established it then was, or what has been its 
subsequent progress, but there is reason to fear that only time is 
needed for its general dissemination. 
The Solanacez also furnish one of the two ligneous members of 
our exotic flora. This is Nicotiana glauca, a soft-wooded shrub or 
small tree of from ten to fifteen feet in height, which is common in 
waste places wherever the soil is sufficiently damp. It produces 
throughout the most of the year an abundance of yellow tubular 
flowers, and it is believed to have been originally cultivated as an or- 
namental shrub at the Spanish ranches and missions, and to have 
escaped thence. A native of Buenos Ayres, it has long been natu- 
ralized in various parts of Mexico, whence we derive it. 
To similar cultivation and escape is also to be attributed the intro- 
duction of the castor bean, Ricinus communis, the only other non- 
native shrub of the region, although it is sometimes grown as a field 
crop, from which escapes also originate. These, however, are less 
robust and shorter lived than the ornamental forms. It is found in 
like places with the Nicotiana and reaches the same dimensions, but 
generally shows a more tree-like manner of growth. Along the 
Santa Ana River, near Anaheim, there are considerable thickets of 
this plant. As it is unable to endure a temperature much below the 
freezing point, the presence of well-grown castor trees is a good in- 
dication that the place in which they are found has not been exposed 
recently to severe frosts. 
Catnip, Nepeta Cataria, a common herb in the Atlantic States, is . 
apparently quite rare on the Pacific side of the continent. It was 
not known to occur in California when the botany of the Geological 
Survey was published, ‘and I have seen no notice of it in more re- 
cent papers. It is, however, quite probable that it may be more 
common than these facts indicate. I first saw it in 1872, growing 
abundantly near an old farm house at Edgar Cafion, in the San 
Bernardino Mountains, and I have since seen a few plants near the 
town of San Bernardino. About the latter. place, Spearmint, 
Mentha viridis, is beginning to be. frequent by the side of ditches 
and on damp banks. Usually an escape: from cultivation in its 
