LEGUMINOSAE 
Cassia Tagera Linnaeus Sp. Pl. (1758) 876. 
In 1854, Spruce collected Cassia Tagera at San Carlos, 
quite probably from the same conspicuous colony which 
covers the low granite boulders immediately behind the 
town. Humboldt had also collected it on the upper Ori- 
noco. It is widely distributed in tropical America, but 
occurs extremely locally in sandy and sterile places. 
When I first saw it at San Carlos, | was struck with 
the peculiar crawling, prostrate, pseudo-rosette habit of 
the plant. Its extraordinary tolerance of high acidity 
and extreme xerophytism amazed me even more. Wish- 
ing to have the plant tested as a possible cover-crop and 
sand-binder, I sent a pressed flowering sprig to Dr. Ber- 
nice G. Schubert of the Gray Herbarium. Upon learning 
the identity of the specimen, I returned later to San 
Carlos and gathered seeds which were sent to Ing. Agron. 
George Addison of the Instituto Agronomico do Norte 
in Belém do Para, who germinated them and cultivated 
the plant. 
It appears from preliminary cultivation on a small scale 
that the little plant may be admirably suited for use as 
a sand-binder on sterile, xerophytic soils, especially on 
sands of a granitic origin. It grows well in Belém, in 
spite of persistent attack by a nematode. 
VenezugeLa: Territorio del Amazonas, Rio Negro, San Carlos. 
‘*Small, crawling rosette plant. Flowers yellow.’’ December 9, 1947, 
Richard Evans Schultes & Francisco Lopez 9265. 
EUPHORBIACEAE 
Mabea subserrulata Spruce ex Bentham in 
Hooker’s Journ. Bot. 6 (1854) 366. 
Apparently hitherto unknown from Colombia, Mabea 
subserrulata was described from material collected by 
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