Sugar Caxe. — Beside these, I saw on trees a large number of fruits, which are said to 

 be excellent but I had no opportunity to taste them. But I must not, in speaking of 

 fruits, omit to mention the sugar cane, which was voted by all our party to be the most 

 invaluable discovery we thirsty travellers made on the Isthmus. It certainly is very 

 palatable and very refreshing, a piece of it being better than a glass of ice-water to allay 

 thirst. 



The Bamboo. — I did not, for a long time, recognize the bamboo, it has so many leaves 

 and branches. It is the very beau ideal of flexile grace — some of them fifty feet high, 

 and scarcely larger than one's arm. 



Lilies. — Among the most beautiful flowering plants were two lilies, the one white, the 

 other yellow, growing in the marshes near Aspinwall, and equalling in beauty any of the 

 lily tribe. 



Creepers. — There were many creepers, also, having the same general character with 

 the trumpet creeper, but with flowers larger, and much more delicate, of white, yellow, 

 and blue. One of the finest shrubs was from five to ten feet high, with large, dark, shin- 

 ing leaves, eighteen inches long, by six wide, springing from the stalk in verticles of 

 four, and having around their petioles a compact mass of flowers, which seemed, at a 

 distance, of the deepest crimson, but, on closer examination, I found that it was the calyx, 

 which was large, and fleshy, and beautifully crimson, while from it issued a tubular 

 flower of the most delicate straw-color. These are set in clusters ten inches in diameter, 

 around the axils of every whorl of leaves. 



Passion Flower. — I saw one species of passion flower, very magnificent, six inches in 

 diameter, almost globular in form, so filled up by an immense number of stamens. 



Sensitive plants. — Near Gatun, the ground was thickly covered with the sensitive 

 plant, precisely the same species which we cultivate. 



Panama. — Plants clamber up every wall of masonry, burst in masses on every ledge, 

 spread over and possess the tiled roofs, wreathe chaplets and crowns on ruined towers, 

 and hang in festoons from every port hole of the bastion. They seem hanging out ban- 

 ners, and raising triumphal arches, to celebrate their victorious conquests over all that 

 man has dared to oppose to their existence, in this, their natural unlimited empire. 



FRUITS. 



BY J. H. WATTS, ROCHESTER, N. Y. 



EocHESTER, N. Y., SO justly renowned for its gardens and fine fruits, is becoming 

 supplied with rare varieties, and it occurred to me that a memorandum kept of kinds 

 not familiarly known, might be the means of inducing cultivators and amateurs to 

 try those which are here mentioned, of apples ripe in August. 



'< Summer Rose," '' Benoni," "Summer Queen," and "Early Joe," are first rate 

 to our taste, and when well grown a great luxury. Of those nearly ripe now, (13th 

 September,") the " Hawley," and " St. Lawrence," are excellent. There are few 

 better, and although we would like some of your " Sops of Wine," we are quite 

 content with the two above mentioned. 



e " Summer Pcarmain" will soon be with us ; it is a very fine apple. "We have 

 cut a " Duchine of Oldenburg," a beautiful sample, and found it a pleasant, 



