128 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



etrated, and where navigation was impossible on account of 

 the dangerous rapids, we began to observe on sandbars along 

 the river, in open ground about the few ranch-houses, saw- 

 mills and mining camps, and in pastures where all other veg- 

 etation had been cropped close, large quantities of the stately 

 Euphorbia Lathyrus. This is known as "caper spurge" or 

 "mole-plant", and is occasionally planted in old gardens as a 

 fancied protection against moles. It sometimes persists for 

 a year or two, but scarcely to be regarded as naturalized in the 

 settled parts of Oregon. Yet in this wild and remote canyon 

 it had fully established itself and would have been taken by the 

 casual observer as one of the commonest native plants. 



YYe continued on down Rogue River to a point about 

 thirty miles from the mouth, and found the Euphorbia still 

 common. For a distance of some ten miles along the 

 river it seems to be one of the dominant species; yet we no- 

 where found it in cultivation or closely associated with cul- 

 tivated plants, and none of the inhabitants — mostly Indians — 

 appeared to know its name or properties. 



Two other introduced species that were almost equally 

 common along this part of the canyon, but less conspicuous, 

 were Silene gallica and Chenopodium carinatum, both of 

 which must have been introduced as weeds, since they possess 

 no qualifications either as useful or ornamental plants that 

 would justify their cultivation. Oddly enough I have never 

 seen either of these species in the more thickly-settled areas 

 of Oregon. 



One of the most interesting grasses that has recently 

 appeared in Western Oregon was collected' on ballast at 

 Linnton, near Portland, during the season of ID IT) and L916, 

 but, on account of the appropriation of the area by a new 

 ship-yard, has probably been exterminated. The grass in 

 question was determined by Mrs. Agnes Chase as Stipa 

 littoralis Philippi, and there are no specimens in the National 



