The Plant World 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF POPULAR BOTANY 



Official Organ of 

 The Wild Flower Preservation Society 



OF America 



Vol. VII APRIL, 1904 No. 4 



Extracts from the Note-Book of a Nat- 

 uralist on the Island of Guam.— XVI I.* 



By William E. Safford. 



Don Gregorio's house is situated near the foot of Mount Santa Rosa. 

 It is one of the best country houses on the island, having a corrugated 

 iron roof and a floor of " ifil " wood {hitsia bijtiga). It is raised six 

 feet from the ground on posts and is surrounded by a few ornamental 

 Codiaeums and bushes of scarlet Hibi.scus. Near the house there is a 

 Carambola tree {Averrhoa carambola) , which the natives of Guam and 

 the Philippines erroneously call ' ' Bilimbinis " or " Balimbines ' ' ; and 

 one of the few grape-vines growing on the island, bearing large white 

 grapes of not very good quality. 



While Dona Rosa and her daughters were preparing dinner for us I 

 lay down in a hammock to rest and dropped off to sleep. For a pillow 

 Dona Rosa gave me a cushion of red cotton stuffed with the floss of the 

 silk-cotton tree (^Ceiba pentandra), which the natives call "Algodon de 

 Manila." When dinner was ready I was called and my hammock 

 unslung to make way for the ifil-wood table. This wood is somewhat 

 cross-grained and is not easy to plane and polish. Both the floor and 

 the table had rough patches in places, where the grain of the wood ran 

 the wrong way. There were few chairs and no bed in the house. We 

 sat on a bench to eat our dinner. In their country houses the natives 



* Continued from the March issue. Beg^un in September, 1902. 



