106 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



we unconsciously startled a great number of butterflies of 

 various denominations from a small space of ground, nor could 

 we discover the cause of the large gathering. About a quarter 

 of an hour before train time we passed a house, with a tall pine 

 hedge around it. Here, Miss Knox told us, lived the neice or 

 grand-neice of John Torrey, and here he had spent some time, 

 when Lakehurst was still Manchester. Many of the trees he 

 had planted were still alive, among them a redwood ; alas, that 

 we knew not this, when first we started, for we had to pass on. 

 It will be the object of a spring trip to Lakehurst, however. In 

 the three hours spent there, we did not meet a single person, 

 until we came to the town pump. It is from spring until 

 winter a deserted village. 

 New York City. 



A VEGETABLE WONDER. 



BY DR. W. W. BAILEY. 



AN old army friend of the writer, famous for his quaint and 

 naive remarks as well as striking anecdotes, used to say 

 that when, during the Mexican war, he first saw the giant 

 cactus or Cercns, he "sat down on a rock and haw-hawed." 

 Quainter and more bizarre than any cactus, absurd as many 

 of them appear is the W elwitschia mirahilis of western Africa. 

 It was at one time called Tumboa, perhaps the native name, 

 though the word appears among the tribes to be generic for 

 any short-stemmed woody plant. The famous Dr. Hooker of 

 Kew Gardens, who made a thorough study of the plant gave 

 it also its present name after the discoverer. Dr. Welwitsch. 

 We could well wish that his title had been more euphonious, 

 but "what's in a name" — or in a pun ? 



It belongs to the family Gnetaceae, relatives of Coniferae, 

 and among which, on our far western plains, is found the cur- 

 ious Ephedra. Our African plant, the subject of this article, 

 appears as a very short, inverted woody cone, presenting in 



