THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 23 



and splits into three valves, which spread and recurve, re- 

 vealing one of nature's marvels. Each valve is found to 

 hold two lines of seeds, each enveloped in a fantastic fiann^.l 

 jacket '>t" a deep clear blue. What for? That is UK^re than 

 1 can tell, but the bony bananas make very pretty ornaments 

 in a botanist's collection. 



There is ncjthing beautiful aljoat a guava tree {Psiditiin 

 yiuiiava) except its pretty, white, rose-like flowers and its 

 profusion of golden yellow, lemon-like fruit. The foliage 

 is coarse and often disfigured by a black fungus growth, the 

 habit straggling. It is rarely planted, but grows spontane- 

 ously, forming over extensive tracts a dense chapparal. 

 Thousands of tons of the fruit go to waste every year. 

 The plebian guava has an aristocratic cousin, called the man- 

 darin guava, which forms an ornamental tree of considerable 

 size, its trunk and branches smooth from exfoliation of the 

 bark, its foliage of rather small obovate, thick, shining cora- 

 cious leaves ; the fruit small and quite acid. Very similar to this 

 in foliage is the strawberry guava, a small shrub; the fruit 

 globular, an inch or less in diameter, red and of an agreeable 

 flavor and borne in frequent, abundant crops. The orange 

 family is w^ell represented, of course; the trees, orange, lime, 

 lemon, shaddock, Chinese orange, citron, etc., having a very 

 ■^trong family resemblance, and all ornamental, particularly 

 when in fruit. The trees naturally have a more luxuriant 

 growth than in California but are not more prolific. 



( To he Continued.) 



