195 



vanced season had carried the Coremaheyond its flowering stage, 

 audits stamens were mostly withered, though hot fallen. Stamin- 

 ate and pistillate plants seemed equally abundant. 



When Mr, Merrill first discovered this locality, it was, I 

 believe, unscathed by fire, but at the time of Dr. Britton's first 

 visit the region had been burned over, so far as it was possible 

 to burn so sparse a growth, and the low pines had been singed and 

 mostly killed. Now among the blackened trunks fresh sprouts 

 of these pines are appearing. But what most excited our surprise 

 was to see myriads of young seedling plants of the Corema springing 

 out of the sand, in the intervals between the patches, and it would 

 seem as if the seeds (tarried by the winds had availed themselves 

 of every spot of bare sand, there to lodge and germinate. None 

 of these seedlings were more than two years old, many not more 

 than one. In none of the many localities of Corema which I have 

 visited do I remember to have seen such seedlings, except upon 

 the summit of Isle au Haut on the coast of Maine, where the 

 ground had been burned over in like manner. 



In illustration of the apparendy capricious manner in which 

 this plant appears, I may mention that on our return to Barnegat 

 we saw two or three patches of it on the south side of the road 

 iibout three miles west of Barnegat, within half a yard of the wheel- 

 track. Search for more of it in this vicinity was unsuccessful, so 

 also was a re-examination of the original locality near the old 

 western hotel at Cedar Bridge. 



We may now restore the Corona to the Flora of New Jersey, 

 with the assurance that this, its most southern locality yet known, 

 can furnish enough of it to supply the botanists of the world for 

 long to come.* 



*The following letter, addressed tome by Dr. Willis in answer loan inquiry, 

 indicates that careful search micht reveal still additional localities. N. L. B. 



White Plains, Nov. 7, i8S^. 

 My Dear Sir: 



Yoursof the 3d. to hand. We found Corema ^c^x/ of Tom's River— and north 

 of Manchester. Also west of Sijuam, south of the river. It was not rare in those 

 neighborhoods. It is though, at least thirty years since I visited them, and the 

 localities have perhaps been exhausted. Dr. Torrey was accustomed to say that 

 civilization was destined to destroy botany. Cordially, 



O. R. Willis. 



