Domestic Notices. 131 



common in Massachusetts also, and a moss of interesting character: Aneura 

 sessilis, (Sullivant,) Marchantia disjuncta, {Sulliv.) of the order Hepaticese; 

 also, Notothylas valvata and N. orbicularis, (Sulliv.) the two latter singular 

 hepatic plants of much interest. See Proceedings of Academy, p. 35, &c. 



Professor Gray (of Harvard University) communicated the characters of 

 some new genera and species of Compositae from Texas, viz., Vernonia 

 Lindheimeri (Gr. and Engelman, PI. Lindh. med.): Ageratum Wrightn, 

 {Torrey and Gray^fi. ined.): Brickellia cylindracea {Gr, and Engel., PI. 

 Lindh. ined.): Lindheimera texana, (Gray,): Keerlia bellidifolia ( Gr. and 

 Engel., I. c.,) : Tetragonothica texana, (Gr, and Engel., I. c.,) : Barra- 

 tia calva (Gray.) See Proceedings Amer. Acad., pp. 46, 48. — R, 



Pleasant Experiment with Andromeda calyculata. — It is well known, that 

 the flower buds of many of our native shrubs, as well as of trees, are formed 

 towards the end of the summer, and are in perfect readiness to expand early 

 in the following spring. Especially is this the case with the Amentacese, a 

 natural order, embracing plants furnished with aments or catkins: such as 

 the alder, poplar, willow, and the like. These hardy and daring efforts of 

 Flora seem to link, with an almost continuous chain, the autumn with the 

 spring. The curious, crisped, threadlike blossoms of the witch hazel, in 

 bunches of yellow flowers, appearing when nature is stripping the foliatre 

 from the deciduous trees, and when the cold winds of November are remind- 

 ing us of the snows and storms of winter, scarcaly wither on their parent 

 branches, before we find these amentaceous plants pushing off their envel- 

 opes, and making ready for the auspicious gales of April and May. Any 

 one who may go into our swamps in midwinter will notice the white and 

 silken flower buds of the swamp willow, with its black and loosened scale- 

 like covering failing to protect what it seemed intended to cover ; and by 

 every brook side, the already pendent aments of the black alder will attract 

 attention not less than the similar aments of the hazel nut by every wall, or 

 on the borders of ill cultivated fields. It seems to require but a moderate 

 continuance of vernal heat to set free the constraint laid on these flower 

 buds ; to loosen and elongate the spikes, and to shed in profusion , all around 

 the golden farina with which they are charged. The beauty of the wil- 

 low, when in blossom, is well known to every lover of wild nature ; and 

 its agreeable sweetness is recognized by the bees and many wintred insects 

 which, with a rare sagacity and instinct, know the times appointed for their 

 renewed labors. 



Having frequently expanded these aments in winter, by cutting branches 

 of the shrubs, and placing them in water in a warm room, I was induced to 

 try what effect the same treatment would produce on the already formed 

 flower buds of the andromeda. This plant or low shrub grows in every 

 sphagnous swamp, and in overflowed meadows, and gives peculiar beauty 

 to every spring by its unique and regularly set rows of white bells on its 

 slender and leafy branches. Its leaves are sempervirent, and thus remain 

 all winter, turning rather brown on approach of cold. Each flower sprino-s 

 out from the axil of one of the smaller leaves, .which invest the terminal 

 racemes, and is of an ovate, cylindrical form, and of delicate whiteness. 



