208 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
now settled as a physician in. West Chester. Dr. R. inherits his 
ancestor’s love of plants, and in his well-kept garden I saw an 
attempt to acclimatize two of our English evergreens, the Bay and | 
the common Laurel, hitherto, I believe, with some success ; but 
the plants I saw were quite small and young, and the winter of 
Pennsylvania is too severe to allow of these species standing out 
unprotected by a covering of straw or mats at that season, which 
must ever prevent their attaining to anything like the size they 
do in our shrubberies. Protected in like manner, a specimen of 
Lagerstromia Indica had stood through more than one winter in 
the open ground. This lovely species adorns the gardens of the 
southern states, where it is called Crape Myrtle, from the crisped 
or curled appearance of the flowers, and there rises commonly 
to twelve or fifteen feet, with a smooth naked stem of eight or ten 
inches in diameter. 
August 14th. Set off at two, r.m., with Mr. Townsend, in a 
rockaway to the Forks of the Brandywine, amongst charming 
woodland scenery, interspersed with high cultivation, thriving 
farms, and rich pastures, which had, even at this season, from the 
moisture of the earlier part of the summer, all the verdure of 
English meadows. The effects of a destructive hurricane, which 
happened only four days previously, and unroofed several houses 
in West Chester, were manifested by the many large trees we saw- 
lying uptorn in the woods. At Philadelphia, which escaped much - 
of its fury, the storm came up from the south-west, between two - 
and three, r.m., on the 9th, with so much darkness, as to make it — 
necessary to light the gas in the hall and dining-saloon of the 
hotel. From the deep gloom, the great heat of the weather, and 
the reputation the climate enjoys for violent electric commotions, I 
was prepared for something much more sublime and appalling; 
but through this very hot summer I have been witness to but few | 
thunderstorms, and those not comparable in duration or intensity 
to very many seen in our own country. Amongst the plants 
gathered in this day's excursion were Urtica Canadensis, Arum + E 
—driphyllum, Impatiens pallida and I. fulva, Michella repenss — — 
Andropogon avenaceum, Panicum capillare, Leersia Vi eos à 
