728 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Northern fox-grape, Vltis labrosca, is wholly confined to the Atlantic 

 States, except that it reappears in Japan and that region. Wistaria 

 was named for a woody leguminous climber, with showy blossoms ; 

 native of the Middle Atlantic States. The other species which we 

 prize so highly in cultivation, W. sinensis, is from China, as its name 

 indicates, or perhaps only from Japan, where it is certainly indige- 

 nous. Our yellow-wood (cladrastis) inhabits a very limited district on 

 the western slope of the Alleghanies. Its only and very near relative 

 (maacJcia) is in Mantchooria. The hydrangeas have some species in our 

 Alleghany region. All the rest belong to the Chino-Japanese region 

 and its continuation westward. The same may be said of the Syringas 

 (Philadelj)hus), except that there are one or two nearly the same in 

 California and Oregon. Our blue choste (cantojihyllum) is confined to 

 the woods of the Atlantic States, but has lately been discovered in 

 Japan. A peculiar relative of it, diphyllce, confined to the higher 

 Alleghanies, is also repeated in Japan, with a slight difference, so that 

 it may largely be distinguished as another species. Another relative 

 is our twin-leaf (Jeffersonia) of the Alleghany region alone. A second 

 species has lately turned up in Mantchooria. A relative of this ispodo- 

 phyllum, our mandrake, a common inhabitant of the Atlantic United 

 States, but found nowhere else. There is one other species of it, and 

 that is in the Himalayas. Here are four most peculiar genera of one 

 family, each of a single species in the Atlantic United States, which 

 are duplicated on the other side of the world, either in identical or 

 almost identical species, or in an analogous species, while nothing else 

 of the kind is known in any other part of the world. I ought not to 

 omit ginseng, the root so prized by the Chinese, and which they 

 obtained from their northern provinces and Mantchooria. We have it 

 also from Corea and Northern Japan. The Jesuit fathers identified 

 the plant in Canada and the Atlantic States, brought it in the Chinese 

 name by which we know it, and established the trade in it, which was 

 for many years most profitable. The exportation of ginseng to China 

 probably has not yet entirely ceased. Whether the Northeastern 

 Asiatic and the Atlantic Amei'ican ginsengs are exactly of the same 

 species or not is somewhat uncertain, but they are hardly if at all dis- 

 tinguishable. There is a shrub ellittia which is so rare and local 

 that it is known only at two stations on the Savannah River, in Geor- 

 gia. It is of peculiar structure, and was wdthout near relative until 

 one was lately discovered in Japan (in Triwitalavia) so like it as hard- 

 ly to be distinguishable, except by having the parts of the blossom in 

 threes instead of fours. We suppose ellittia had happened to be col- 

 lected only once, a good while ago, and all knowledge of the limited 

 and secluded locality was lost ; and meanwhile the Japanese form 

 came to be known. Such a case would be paralled with an actual one. 

 A specimen of a peculiar plant was detected in the herbarium of the 

 elder Michaux, who collected it (as his autograph ticket shows) some- 



