126 CROOMIA PAUCIFLORA. FEW -FLOWERED CROOMIA. 



Our first knowledge of the plant came from the great botanist 

 Nuttall, who described it as Cissanipdos pauciflora in the 

 "Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia." 

 This genus, Cissanipdos, is placed with the " Moon-wort" family, 

 or Menispcrmacccs, but on fresh specimens from Mr. Croom and 

 Dr. Chapman coming into the hands of Dr. Torrey, he decided 

 that it was not of that family, but belonged to the Berberries, or 

 Bcrbei'idacecB, and this of course necessitated another name for 

 the genus, so he dedicated it to one of the above collectors, 

 Mr. Croom, retaining Nuttall's specific name — Crooinia paiid- 

 Jiora, or the "few-flowered Croomia." Our bibliographic works 

 refer to Torrey in "Annals of the New York Lyceum," but the 

 student will be surprised to find that there is no such paper 

 there ; and its non-appearance in that serial after being read 

 before the body is believed to be the result of a personal trouble, 

 which shows that even a model of amiability may after all be sim- 

 ply a human being with weaknesses like unto ourselves. The 

 first description really appears to be in the " Flora of North Amer- 

 ica " by Torrey and Gray, issued in 1840. It is here said of it: 

 "We consider this plant a reduced form of Berberidacece : it is, 

 however, remarkable for its persistent sepals, suspended seeds, 

 and in being apetalous (having a calyx but no corolla). It would 

 be impossible to determine from the habit of the plant whether it 

 were dicotyledonous or monocotyledonous ; and the embryo is 

 so minute that the cotyledons cannot be disdnguished, but the 

 structure of the rhizoma is exogenous, a circle of spiral vessels 

 surrounding the central pith." It is here that one of the inter- 

 esting facts about Croomia is developed. As most readers 

 know, the great divisions of the vegetable world — the monocoty- 

 ledons, or those plants with one seed-leaf, and the endogf ns, or 

 those which have the wood arranged without concentric circles — 

 are regarded as about the same thing ; as also are the dicoty- 

 ledons, or those with two seed-leaves, and the exogens, or those 

 arranged with circles of wood, as in our ordinary Umber trees. 

 But in time it was found that notwithstanding the exogenous 



