BOTANY. 301 



a solution of common soda, or chloride of lime. It is next put into a 

 masticating machine, such as is used in the manufacture of caout- 

 chouc, and is then pressed through rollers, which convert it into sheets 

 of various widths and thicknesses. These sheets are subsequently cut 

 into boards, by vertical knives placed at the further end of a table, 

 along which the sheets are carried, by a cloth or web, to another roll- 

 er, round which they pass, and are thus cut into the required sizes. 

 All kinds of ornamental wainscoating and mouldings are now made of 

 gutta-percha, in addition to the other innumerable uses to which it is 

 daily applied. 



BOTANICAL TREASURES OF CALIFORNIA. 



THE following remarks on the flora of California are from the pen of 

 W. R. Prince, the distinguished florist and botanist of Flushing, L. I. 



"There are hundreds of species of trees, shrubs, herbaceous and 

 bulbous flowering plants indigenous to California, which are totally 

 distinct from those found in other parts of the globe, and many of 

 them are entirely new to the botanic world. The most important of 

 these are two new species of pines, and another of cedar, which at- 

 tain each a diameter of eight to twelve feet, and which comprise dense 

 forests of the finest timber in the world, between the extreme spurs 

 and central range of the Sierra Nevada, and whose existence there in 

 such masses is almost unknown, even to those settled in California. 



"A railroad connecting these immense forests with the San Joa- 

 quin, or some navigable branch, would speedily render the aid of 

 Oregon, as regards the supplies of timber, entirely nugatory. Of 

 the oak (quercus), there are five species, three of which are timber- 

 trees, and two shrubby and unavailable. The arbor vitse, growing in 

 the pine forest referred to, and forming a most regular and beautiful 

 cone, is a distinct species, greatly assimilating to the Tliaya sibiriki in 

 foliage, and attaining to a height of eighty to one hundred feet. In 

 other localities there were found two species of ash, one of alder, a 

 myraca tw r enty feet high and two feet in diameter, a photinia of great 

 beauty, fifteen feet high and two feet in diameter, several species of 

 rhamnus, a species of crab-apple from which the Indians make cider, 

 a species of the cercis or Judas-tree, a clematis, honeysuckle, sym- 

 posia, and cephalanthus, with some species of grapes, two fine species 

 of raspberries, two species of blackberries, several species of currants, 

 a gooseberry, two varieties of the strawberry of a new and peculiar 

 species, with a large and excellent fruit; a calycanthus attaining ten 

 to twelve feet in height, with very large flowers, which continue their 

 bloom through several months ; a dwarf horsechestnut or buckeye, of 

 fifteen feet in height, and spreading to an equal diameter, producing a 

 profusion of beautiful flowers ; and many other productions of equal 

 interest, which time will not allow me to enumerate. 



" In bulbous flowers this country is particularly rich, and many of 

 them are of great beauty and interest, and particularly striking ; the 

 balsamic character of very many of the herbaceous plants forms a pe- 

 culiar feature in that class. The ehanchalagua, so celebrated for its 



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