38 
63. Trees and Rain—The influence of trees upon rains and the 
general moisture of the atmosphere, which has been so much dis 
cussed of late, receives a strong illustration from the island of Santa 
Cruz, W. I. ; 
A friend who spent the months of February, March and April 
last upon the island, informs me that, when he was there twenty years 
ago, the island was a garden of freshness, beauty and fertility. Woods 
covered the hills, trees were everywhere abundant, and rains were 
profuse and frequent. The memory of its loveliness called him there 
at the beginning of the present year, when, to his astonishment, he 
found about one-third of the island, which is about twenty-five 
miles long, an utter desert. The forests and trees generally had 
been cut away, rain-falls had ceased, and a process of desiccation 
beginning at one end of the land had advanced gradually and irre- 
sistibly upon the island, until for seven miles it is dried and deso- 
late as the sea-shore. Houses and beautiful plantations have been 
abandoned, and the people watch the advance of desolation, unable 
to arrest it, but knowing, almost to a certainty, the time when thei! 
own habitations, their gardens and fresh fields, will become a part 
of the waste ; the whole island seems doomed to become a dest 
The inhabitants believe, and my friend confirms their opinion, 
that this sad result jg due to the destruction of the trees upon the 
island some years ago. ~ —J_S. M. 
66. New Stations.—Polanisia graveolens, Raf. ; Lythrum Saliearia, L- ; 
Aselepias verticillata, L., found abundant along the Hudson R. RB. R., 
at Fort Montgomery Station, a few miles below Garrison's. riser 
spicata, Willd., between Fort Montgomery and Garrison's, about 
opposite Gov. Fish’s residence. J.S.M. 
July 31. ; 
67, Note from Prof. Thomas (, Porter—If Budd’s Lake, Morris 0% 
N. J., is within the circuit embraced by your Butreriy, and it mar 
be, being less than fifty miles from New York, I can report as grow” 
ing there, and can furnish specimens of, Salix myrtilloides, S. candid# 
and S. lucida—also, Betula pumila. A number more of interea 
plants oceur there, and the point is well worth a yisit from te 
members of your Club. It is very easy of access, and there is 4 vt 
hotel on the border of the Lake. Tt lies only 2} miles south 
Stanhope Station on the Morris and Essex R.R. Lake Hopatool 
which is still further east, can boast of possessing, on the savy 
margin of its largest island, the rare Juncus subtilis, Mchx. (oJ. pelo 
carpus, var. subtilis (2), Engelm.). I collected it there some y 
ago on the 25th of September, not in fruit. 
Kaston, Pa. 
68. Nilver-leaf—This name we found given in Greene ©o., N. 
_ to the common Balsam, Impatiens fulva. Some one had noticed th 
when the fresh leaves are immersed in water the underside re! 
the light as from a surface of silver-foil. But many other lea’ 
those of Dogbane for exam le, exhibit the phenomenon in 
equal perfection. The pate of these leaves is not Ww by 
