BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 25S 



form a correct conception of its appearance. The characteristic 

 aspect of a plant can only be described by comparison. The best of 

 dried specimens fail to show all. That subtile quality which corres- 

 ponds to expression is often wholly lost. This quality is sometimes of 

 varietal importance, and its loss in drying often renders apparent a re- 

 lationship difficult to perceive in the living plants. Detailed descrip- 

 tions or field notes relative to most southern plants would hardly be 

 admissible to the pages of the Gazette, but there are two plants with 

 which I am sure its readers will be glad to be made better acquainted, 

 because of their associaiion, by name, with two of our most zealous 

 botanists, namely, Dr. A. W. Chapman and Dr. A. P. Garber. This 

 association appears the more fitting when we consider that these two 

 plants are strictly Floridian, and that the botanists whose names they 

 bear have distinguished themselves most by their labor s in Florida. 



The Chap»nnnia Floridami and Garbcria fruticosa are confined 

 not only to Florida but to tiie center of that State. This range, how- 

 ever, is not nearly so limited as has been supposed. Dr. Chapman 

 described both as growing in eastern Florida. In the course of my 

 travels I have found Chapinannia in abundance from Fort Ogden, in 

 Manatee Co., to Ocala, in Marion Co., a distance of 150 miles. Gar- 

 beria I have found on the western coast at Tampa, on the eastern 

 coast near Matanzas, and in the interior near the Ocklawaha. Ga7'- 

 /v;'M grows only on "spruce-pine ridges," dry "heavy" sands, which 

 make the worst of roads, and best suit that peculiar pine which Dr. 

 Chapman has named Finns clausa. 



The Chapmannia grows in dry, open woods, and flowers through 

 out May, June and July. Its flowers are showy, but few and ephem- 

 eral, otherwise the plant is uninteresting except to the botanist, who 

 finds in it some very noticeable peculiarities. It is a slender plant, 

 sparsely branched, with meager foliage, in habit much \\\\q. Dcsmodium 

 rigidinn. Like most other Legmninosre found in these pine woods, the 

 roots bear slender tubers a few inches below the surface. The stem 

 — one or more from a root— are slender, leafy below, above more of 

 less branched and glandular hirsute, the calices being quite viscid. 

 The leaves are pubescent beneath. i'-2' long, pinnately 3-7 foliolate, 

 and are provided with subulate persistent stipules. The leaflets vary 

 from one-fourth of an inch to nearly one inch in length; they are 

 mostly obovate or oval and obtuse, but they vary from orbicular to 

 narrowly lanceolate, and from acute to retuse, always mucronate and 

 petiolulate. So far we find no marked peculiarities. Let us now pro- 

 ceed to the inflorescence, where generic characters are to be looked 

 for, and note such features as are not mentioned in Chapman's 

 descri|)tion. That author does injustice to the flowers of his plant; 

 instead of being "small," the perfect flowers are quite large, often an 

 'inch and a half in width. Their color is a deep rich yellow, like those 

 of Sfylosanlhes. Thty open early in the morning, perhaps in the night, 

 and in sunny weather are closed by nine o'clock, scarcely outlasting 

 the dew. As the keel is closely wrapped around the stamens, the 

 flower apjiears to be tripetalous, the other three large petals spread- 



