PERIPATETIC BOTANY 113 



a more workmanlike fashion, and him also the 

 key led to the Signoniacece^ but no farther. As 

 the common saying is, the trail had " run up a 

 tree." In short, with all the facts before us, 

 leaves, buds, blossom, fruit, we were stumped. 

 " It is some representative of the Bignonia fam- 

 ily not included in Chapman's Flora," was the 

 professor's final verdict. 



The next forenoon we had agreed to spend 

 together in the big hammock, through which I 

 had been sauntering by myself for the past five 

 weeks. We should pass the Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station on the way, and I determined to 

 carry the troublesome specimen along and submit 

 it to the professor in charge. So said, so done ; 

 but as we stopped at the post office, there stood 

 the man himself at the door. " What is this? " I 

 asked, scarcely waiting to bid him good-morning. 

 " Crescentia" he answered promptly, " a plant 

 of the Bignonia family." So the other professor 

 had been exactly right. 



And now for the more dramatic part of the 

 story. The day before at noon of the day on 

 which I found the plant in question I received 

 a letter from a Boston friend, himself a univer- 

 sity professor of botany, to whom I had written, 

 begging him to quit his desk, like a reasonable 

 man, and join me in this botanical paradise. He 



