100 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



dates, I believe, from the time of the Mormon occupation of 

 the Great Basin, but I have never been able to ascertain the 

 reason for it. Perhaps some reader of the American Botanist 

 can throw light on the question. I have always heard it 

 spoken of by the California desert people as "cactus," 

 but it is truly a yucca. To find a use for the trees, which are 

 very abundant on the Mojave Desert, has long taxed the in- 

 genuity of the inventive. An Englishman who thought he had 

 solved the problem, once shipped a cargo of the trunks to Eng- 

 land and had it made up into paper pulp, and I have read that 

 an edition of a certain British journal was printed on the paper 

 so made. It was not a satisfactory article,, however, and the 

 venture was not repeated. At present there is a factory in 

 Los Angeles which uses considerable of this yucca wood for 

 the manufacture of such articles as surgeons' splints, book 

 covers, scrolls for wrapping the trunks of young nursery stock, 

 etc. 



Pasadena, Calif. 



ECCENTRICITIES OF DISTRIBUTION. 



By Dr. W. W. Bailey. 



IF, as often happens during the midsummer days, some one 

 brings me for determination a specimen of "woad wax,'' 

 the broom {Genista tinctoria), it is my habit to inquire "when 

 were you in Salem, Mass.," or I may extend the inquiry to any 

 part of Essex County. This very pretty legume yellows that 

 whole region as the gorse does certain portions of Great Bri- 

 tain. It has prevailed there very many years. But the ques- 

 tion is, why there only? Why, in these days of rapid transit 

 is it not carried far and wide. As a matter of fact it is not. 

 I have seen stray specimens of it in Little Compton, R. I. and 

 I think once in South Kingston, but why doesn't it come down 

 in full platoon front to Attleboro, Mansfield and Pawtucket? 



