THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 141 



{Soiintrus ccniiiiis) found wherever the ground is wet, witli 

 arrow-shaped lea\es and terminal spikes of white flowers 

 drooping over at the tij)s. 



In the most interesting swamp we passed, I found a num- 

 ber of specimens of an Acscidus with pahnately divided leaves 

 composed of five leaflets slightly drooping on long red pet- 

 ioles. The hright-red terminal flowers were arranged in 

 threes on red pechmcles. The numerical scheme of the flow- 

 er is unusual, there being a five-toothed calyx, four petals and 

 seven excluded stamens. There were several stems thrown up 

 from a creping red rootstock, and most of the plants were 

 bushy in appearance and not more than four or five feet high, 

 though back in an open place in the swamp I saw a tree fifteen 

 or twenty feet high of loose open habit and every branch 

 crowned with crinismi fl(^wer-spikes. 



Close by a little bridge were tall, slender yaupon holly 

 trees and in a tangled mass over all climbed blossoming bam- 

 b(X3 vines (Southern smilax) and Ainpclopsis arhorca just 

 putting out its bronzy leaves which later turn a lovely irides- 

 cent green. I do not know of a common name for this latter 

 vine. The flowers are inconspicuous and the natives confuse 

 it with a trumpet-creeper {Bignonia) which is very /n;like it, 

 as tliis has delicate compound leaves of a very dift'erent shade 

 of green from the once pinnate leaves of the creeper. 



In another swamp, we found numerous pink azaleas al- 

 most done'flowering and the graceful fringe tree {Chionantluis 

 lirginica) which at a distance appeared to be a cloud of white. 

 Almost at our journey's end was an open glade covered with 

 large clumps of scrub palmetto and several small specimens of 

 cabbage palmetto. The cabi^age palmetto is very slow-grow- 

 ing so that while not over eight or ten feet high tliey were 

 probably more than twenty years old. The old leaf-sheaths 



