n8 PLANT AND ORGANIC CHEMISTRY 



or ten feet, gradually diverge from one another, giving to the 

 whole shrub the outline of a spread fan. Each separate stem 

 is clothed throughout with short gray thorns and small dark 

 green leaves, and terminates in a spike, a foot long, of bright 

 scarlet trumpet- shaped flowers. The stems are not so thickly 

 armed with thorns but that they can be handled if grasped 

 circumspectly, and being very hard and durable, as well as 

 of a convenient size, they are much employed for fencing pur- 

 poses about the stage stations and upon the ranches adjoining 

 the desert." The author states: "Give a skillful Mexican 

 ocotilla poles and plenty of rawhide thongs and he requires 

 neither nail nor hammer to construct a line of fence, which 

 for combined strength, neatness, and durability fairly rivals 

 the best work of that kind done in our land of saw mills and 

 nail factories." 



The plant is botanically described under order Tamariscinea, 

 tribe III, Fouquierece, new genus and species. 1 For other 

 sources of information see "A Tour in New Mexico; " 2 and in 

 1 1 Plantae Wrightianae 3 Texano-Mexicanae." The writer has not 

 been able to find any notice of chemical studies made upon it. 



The specimens of ocotilla, at the writer's request, were col- 

 lected and transmitted from Lake valley, Southwest New 

 Mexico, through the kindness of Professor E. D. Cope. The 

 portions of the stem, similar to those used in the analysis, vary 

 in diameter from an inch to an inch and a half. The bark 

 shows a thickness of over an eighth of an inch, and is of a ,sage 

 color generally. The exterior surface is made rough by an 

 interlacement of hard projecting material; some of the smaller 

 stems are encircled with the gray thorns described, arising 

 in regular series from the projecting portions of the bark. 

 Between the interlacements are oblong and diamond- shaped 

 intervals, which are filled with superimposed layers of a yel- 

 lowish color and looking as if coated with a wax. They ap- 

 pear to be cemented together by a glistening substance which, 



1 Bentham and Hooker, Genera Plantarum. 



2 By Dr. N. Wislizenus. 



3 Gray, Smithsonian Contribittions to Knowledge, vol. iii, part i, p. 85, and 

 part ii, p. 63. 



