164 DAVENPORT ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 



the indurated disc, expel their smooth-coated seeds through the ventral 

 slit with considerable force. I have had occasion lately to notice this, 

 even in herbarium specimens of nearly mature fruit, which when 

 brought into a warm apartment, revealed their explosive nature by a con- 

 tinuous fusilade, till the ammunition was all expended and the frag- 

 ments of the ruptured pericarp alone left to determine their carpologi- 

 cal features. The manifest utility of this provision for disseminating 

 seeds, will largely account for the gregarious habit of most of the spe- 

 cies, and, no doubt, also serves as a protection against the aggression 

 of omnivorous rodents, to say nothing of avaricious botanists. 



There is still another feature of growth calling for some detailed 

 notice. Contrary to the view presented by Professor Trelease in the 

 paper above referred to, it is quite certain that nearly all the Pacific 

 coast species develop their inflorescence from buds fully formed the 

 previous season, and rarely from the shoots of the same year. As 

 collecting botanists do not often gather belated specimens which would 

 show the late-formed buds, it is quite likely that ordinary herbarium 

 specimens do not clearly show the true conditions of future growth, 

 and hence such a mistaken conclusion might be easily reached; but, as 

 far as my observations go, it is only the well-known Eastern Atlantic 

 species, together with the Mexican, C. azureus, and probably C. decutn- 

 bens of the Sierra Nevada, that flower from the fresh-growing shoots of 

 the same season. 



The usual character of growth and inflorescence, as seen on the 

 Pacific slope, may be here briefly stated : When seen in the season of 

 late autumnal rest, and before the winter rains set in, or where, in the 

 higher mountains the deep winter snows come on to protect the ten- 

 der growth, the later leafy shoots show in their axils or terminal branches, 

 a more or less distinct development of flower buds, closely enwrapped 

 in protecting scales, the latter usually densely tomentose; as soon as 

 growth commences, which in the lowlands, is often as early as January 

 or February, and extending northward as late as May or June, the de- 

 ciduous scales, each subtending a fasciculate cluster of pedicels, are 

 pushed off, and the flower buds, often showing a lower series of leaf 

 bracts, expand their flower clusters, which gradually elongate to their 

 full development. In maturing fruit, the whole flowering branch, in- 

 cluding the lower empty leaf bracts, lose their vitality and remain, after 

 the expulsion of the seeds, as dead withered branches, surmounted by 

 the remains of the indurated and brittle disc and calyx tube. It was 

 probably on such a specimen of C. sanguineus, that Professor Trelease 

 based his conclusion that it was the only species to develop flowers 



