1864.] lawson's botanical notes. 5 



new discoveries. Yet it is work that must be done, and it is 

 usually in fact by this very process that discoveiies are elimi- 

 nated. Lately some attention has been given by a phenomenon 

 ■said to be exhibited by Silphium laciniatum on the prairies, and 

 the most contradictory observations have been recorded. In 1862 

 Mr. W. Gorrie called the attention of the Botanical Society of 

 ■Edinburgh to various notices of this plant, such for example as 

 the foUowinof : — 



"But we had a guide to our direction unerring as the magnetic 

 needle. We were traversing the region of the Polar Plant, 

 'the planes of whose leaves, at almost every step, pointed out our 

 meridian. It grew upon our track, and was crushed under the 

 •hoof of our horses, as we rode onwards." — The Scalp Hunters, 

 by Capt, Mayne Reid, p. 206. 



" Whilst in the damper ground appeared the Polar Plant ; that 

 prairie compass, the plane of whose leaf ever turns towards the 

 magnetic meridian." — The City of the Saints, hy R. F. Burton, 

 p. 60. 



" Fortunately none go to the prairie for the first time without 

 being shown, in case of such mishaps, the groups of compass-weed 

 "which abound all over the plains, the broad fliit leaves of which 

 point due north and south with an accuracy as unvarying as that 

 of the magnetic needle itself." — The Prince of Wales in Canadai 

 ■&C., by the Times'' s Special Correspondent, p. 300. 



"On the uplands the grass is luxuriant, and occasionally is 

 found the wild tea (^Aniorpha canescens) and the Pilot Weed, Sil- 

 j}hium laciniatum.'^ — Emory'' s Notes with the Advance Guard, 

 p. 11. 



" It is said that the planes of the leaves of this plant are coin- 

 cident with the plane of the meridian ; but those I have noticed 

 must have been influenced by some local attraction that deranged 

 their polarity." — Lieut. Albert's Notes in the same work. 



*' Patience," the Priest would say ; " have faith, and thy prayer will be 



answered. 

 Look at this delicate plant that lifts its head from the meadow ; 

 See how its leaves all poiat to the north, as true as the magnet. 

 It is the compass-flower, that the finger of God has suspended 

 .Here on its fragile stock, to direct the traveller's journey 

 Over the sea-like, pathless, limitless waste of desert.'' 



Longfellow's Evangeline. 

 What every body says must be true. The combined testimony 



