278 SPANISH-TOWN. 



come, that the leaves, of what I will call the foliage 

 year, as distinguished from the alternate flower and 

 seed year, become soon detached and fall, particularly 

 if the season has been such as to thicken the juices 

 by rapid exhaustion. The frail-bound vegetation 

 withering or not adhering firmly in such a season, 

 would be shaken off in a shower of leaves under any 

 one of those fitful tornadoes, that sweep by so often 

 and so gustily after the sun has a second time reached 

 the zenith of our island, and is hastening with its 

 train of storm-clouds to recross the equator and to 

 enter the southern hemisphere. 



" It frequently happens that one half of a Silk- 

 Cotton tree, or some particular cluster of stems and 

 branches, has an alternation of leaves and flowers 

 in a different sequence of years from other parts of 

 the tree. This deviation from what we have laid 

 down as the economy of the whole tree is very in- 

 telligible as a new condition of parts of the tree. 

 It must have been seen that in the long run an 

 Eriodendron or Ceiba, in distributing its sap in 

 streams and lines from the main roots to the main 

 stems, must change from an united to a divided 

 economy of vegetation : — that instead of regulating 

 its functions as one tree, it would set up an order 

 as a bundle of trees clustered together in one column. 

 Now it happens from some factitious circumstance, 

 that one side of the tree, or one set of branches, have 

 suffered some interruption, or have been forced into 

 some acceleration of function as great evaporating 

 organs. This may have been a diminished growing 

 property in the terminal twigs, or an increased nu- 



