BOTANY. 317 



roses, covering the entire structure with a dense mass of spotless, 

 glossy cotton." The amount of cotton contained upon that single tree 

 Mr. Kendall estimates at not less than one hundred pounds. 



Further investigations showed that the species of gossypium in ques- 

 tion was widely distributed, and in general possessed the following 

 characteristics : In its native condition, and in high southern lati- 

 tudes, its average size and altitude equal the medium peach tree of 

 North America say eight inches in diameter at two feet from the 

 ground, and in height twenty feet ; in its general structure more 

 nearly resembling the white mulberry than any other tree with which 

 I am familiar. The leaves are abundant, distinctly denticulated, arid 

 of a glossy, silvery green. Flowers profuse, very double, variegated, 

 and in size about a third smaller than the perfected hollyhock, the 

 tree, when in full bloom, presenting one of the most beautiful effects 

 imaginable. The bolls at maturity are twice the size of those borne 

 by the herbaceous plant,, and wherever it approached the colder 

 regions, I found the fibre finer, and the length of staple increased. 



The perennial cotton-tree is propagated from seed, or more readily 

 from cuttings simply thrust into the ground, and possesses this pecu- 

 liar advantage in any country over the herbaceous plant. It may be 

 planted out as an apple, peach, or pear orchard, and the field cropped 

 with any of the cereals, until the tree has reached its maximum 

 standard. I found, says Mr. Kendall, the finest specimens of the tree, 

 bearing cotton of the longest staple and whitest, finest fibre, in a 

 region where the snow lies three months out of the twelve ; where 

 the vicissitudes of climate are greater than they are in New England ; 

 and where not only the natives, but the furred animals, sometimes 

 freeze to death. On the Atlantic side, the Gossypium arboreum 

 grows spontaneously, and entirely hardy, as high as the parallel of 

 forty-two degrees. That the tree readily adapts itself to all reason- 

 able and very many unreasonable conditions of soil and climate, is 

 conclusively proved by the fact of my having found it growing bravely 

 at an altitude very nearly approaching the snow-line, on the eastern 

 slope of the Bolivian Andes, in a soil as red with peroxide of iron as 

 a well burnt brick, and almost as hard. In the Desert of Alcarnaya, 

 I found it growing most determinedly in a bed of volcanic scoria, 

 where never a drop of rain falls. In the vicinity of Arica and Tacua, 

 in Peru, it thrives and produces cotton, growing in a waste of arid, 

 burning sand. Everywhere in the low countries of the tropical 

 regions, both the tree and staple degenerate ; the former, in all cases, 

 into a shrub, of from nine to twelve years' duration ; the latter always 

 into a coarser, shorter, and, under many conditions, into a material of 

 no commercial value. 



SKELETON LEAVES. 



Mr. Edward Parish, of Philadelphia, the well-known pharmaceu- 

 tist, publishes the following account of the process of producing the 

 permanent and beautifully white preparations of the frame-work or 

 skeleton of different vegetable structures, known as "skeletonizing." 

 It consists in promoting the decomposition of the cellular structure of 

 leaves, and other parts of plants, without breaking or injuring their 

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