700 THE PLANT WORLD. 



merce, and already tunas from Sicily can be found in fruit stores and 

 markets in this county, selling for sixty cents a dozen. 



Since the conquest of Mexico the tuna has spread within its zone 

 around the world. Dr. C. A. White, in his interesting article in a 

 former number of The Plant World, has noticed its presence in a 

 number of places in the Orient. The writer saw his first tufia at 

 Seville, in southern Spain, where great hedges of this plant and the 

 agave give a Mexican appearance to the scenery. 



It would seem that the large-fruited tunas of Mexico might profit- 

 ably be introduced in southern Arizona and California, and it is hoped 

 that the experiment may be tried by the Department of Agriculture- 



NATURAL POST-GARDENS. 



By C. F. Saiinders. 



THOUGH man's hand is constantly busy despoiling the face of 

 nature by various "improvements" and money-making devices, 

 she, on her side, never tires of returning good for evil, striving 

 to hide with fresh growths of plant-life the homeliness of hu- 

 man works. This fact was brought to mind one day last summer by 

 observing some old piles standing in the river water — the remains of 

 a city wharf built upon cleared ground about the large grain elevators 

 of one of our trunk line railroads. The part of the posts above high- 

 water mark was crumbling with age and in numerous little holes and 

 pockets worn in the wood by time and the elements, seeds had lodged 

 and springing up, presented that summer day, a sight worth a long 

 walk to see. There, rooted in the mossy crevices of the rotting wood, 

 the Water Horehound {Lycopus) lifted its flower-encircled stems up 

 into the sunshine, while downward a foot and a half in the air its long 

 runners hung, swinging gracefully above the tide. Hard by on the 

 same post the Skullcap [Scutellaria lateriflora) flourished blue-hel- 

 meted ; and the modest blossoms of the white Smartweed ( Polygonum 

 acre) relieved from the competition of brighter bloomers, had a chance 

 to show the world how much of beauty there is in the humblest flower. 

 The grass family also had its representative in the person of the long 

 and lean fingered Crab-grass {Panicuin sanguinale.) All these made 

 quite a comfortable and congenial little party on the waterbound 

 posts, nearly every one of which was inhabited by individuals of all four 

 genera above mentioned. 



So nature in the midst of the busy hum of human traffic, quietly 

 plants and tends her bit of garden to show men that the flowers are 

 quite as well worth looking after as the corn and wheat fields. 



Philadelphia. 



