338 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



Austria, but tbey are not protected by mica and are therefore more liable to 

 injury. 



In a hasty examination of the specimens, Catalpa wood is found with a 

 few accessory lines which readily might be mistaken for annual rings, but for 

 the want of the pores always accompanying the vernal wood in this genus. 

 Such accessory rings (false annual rings) are rare in the woods of our tem- 

 perate climate, but in a specimen of Pinus Elliottii, of South Florida, I find 

 such rings quite numerous, and difficult to explain and to distinguish from 

 true annual rings. In wood of the same species from farther north no such 

 appearance is observed, the annual rings being clear and well marked. 



If sufficient encouragement be given it is proposed to continue the work, so 

 that sections of all our more important forest trees may be furnished. — George 

 Engelmann. 



Morphology of Spines.— In an illustrated paper lately laid before the 

 •German Botanical Society, Dr. J. Urban, of Berlin, proves that the spines of 

 Auranliacie are not, as has been generally assumed, abortive branchlets, such as 

 we find in Qratmgus, Gleditschia and many other ligneous plants. He shows 

 that they are the abnormally developed basal leaves or bud scales of the 

 axillary bud. A pair of these scales is found on both sides of the bud ; 

 -sometimes both of them are developed into spiues, and then the small bud 

 itself is found between and a little above them. In other cases the scales are 

 unequally developed into a small and a larger spine, but more frequently only 

 one of them grows out into a spine. In this latter case the spine assumes an 

 almost axillary position, and the rest of the bud, with the other lateral 

 (originally opposite) minute scale, is pushed sideways and upwards, so that it 

 assumes the position generally ascribed to it by those who have treated on 

 this subject, seemingly above the spine, thus simulating a secondary bud above 

 the primary one, which would be the spine. But the bud will always be found 

 a little sideways of a line drawn from the center of the axil upwards, and the 

 other lateral bud scale can always be discovered on the other side of the bud. 

 Where there are a pair of unequally developed spines the case becomes quite 

 plain. 



In connection with this and other strange developments of different 

 organs into spines, it occurred to me that my observations on the morphology 

 of the spines of Fmirquiera, made nearly thirty years ago, seem to have escaped 

 botanists: though I have often spoken of them, I have never published any- 

 thing about them. 



A small specimen of Fouquiera splendens, sent to me from New Mexico, veg- 

 etated well enough for many months, continuing to make its fasciculated spatu- 

 la te subsessile leaves from the undeveloped branchlets in the axils of the spines, 

 without showing any further growth, till after a heavy thunderstorm and rain 

 with sultry weather, a vigorous shoot sprang suddenly from one of the upper- 

 most of these axils and developed scattered leaves of the same form, but larger, 

 and borne on long (say J inch long) horizontal petioles, while the leaf-blade 

 was nearly erect. In the fall these leaves began to wither and to fall, but not, as 



