NOTICES OF NEW NATIVE PLANTS. 33 



14. CucuRBiTA PERENNis and C. DiGiTATA, Gray, two squashes of our 

 Southwestern borders, which are remarkable for their perennial and large 

 fleshy roots, claim only a botanical interest, their fruit being inedible, and 

 their habit coarse, like their congeners. But C. digitata may be fancied 

 for its elegantly incised and somewhat mottled foliage. It runs on the 

 ground, to the length of even thirty or forty feet in a season, rooting at the 

 joints. 



15. Megactstts Californica, another perennial of this order, of which 

 we fortunately raised a plant from seed collected by Mr. Thurber, has no 

 beauty or known use to recommend it. It is remarkable solely for the 

 gigantic size which its root attains in California and Oregon, far surpassing 

 the Bryony of Europe in this respect. This root is said to grow to the size 

 of a flour-barrel. 



16. Cereus GIGANTE0S, Engelm. Through Dr. Engelmann's attention 

 to the Cactus family, the Botanic Garden has been able to accumulate a 

 good number of the species which form so prominent a feature of the vege- 

 tation of our drier Western and Southwestern regions. They are nearly 

 all small-flowered species, and none of them are likely to interest the 

 florist. But mention should be made of the Giant Cereus of the lower part 

 of the Gila River, and in Sonora, so familiar from the accounts of it pub- 

 lished by Col. Emory, Mr. Bartlett, and others, — so remarkable for its size 

 and aspect, attaining, as it does, in an otherwise nearly treeless region, the 

 height of from twenty to sixty feet! The pulp of its large and red fruit, in 

 which the seeds are imbedded as in a fig, is collected by the Pinos Indians, 

 preserved by drying, and used for food. A quantity of this material, col- 

 lected by Mr. Thurber, when attached to the Mexican Boundary Survey, 

 and presented to our garden and to other establishments, furnished an 

 abundance of seeds, which have freely vegetated ; but the seedlings and 

 young plants, both here and in the European gardens, are very apt to 

 perish, probably from overwatering. We still have plants, however, five or 

 six years old ; also, a single individual, now almost a foot high, which was 

 brought alive by an officer of the army (whose name, unfortunately, is not 

 recorded) to the late Professor Bailey of West Point, who presented it to 

 the Cambridge Botanic Garden. 



As seeds of the great Composite family are readily collected and easy to 

 germinate, it has naturally happened that many of the new species of our 

 Western and Southern regions have been here cultivated, and some val- 

 uable acquisitions made, especially of garden annuals. Many of these 

 have unfortunately been lost. Of those which still survive here, or in gar 

 dens supplied by this establishment, only a few of the finer species can 

 here be enumerated, omitting those of botanical rather than horticultural 

 interest. 



17. Eopatorium Berlandieri (also ageratifolium,) D. C, of Southern 

 Texas. A greenhouse species, one of the prettier of those white-flowered 

 Corymbose species which adorn our conservatories in winter. 



18. ApHANOSTEPHUs RAMOSissiMus, D. C, of Tcxas. A handsome, 

 daisy-like annual, more elegant than A. Arkansanus of the same region, 



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