248 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. [ October. 



fullv introduced from abroad into this well-watered, sunny 



and fertile land. 



The most prolific order of plants found here is, of course, 



the Compositae, as it is in all other countries. Many mem- 

 bers of the order, however, are shrubs, some even attaining 

 the stature of trees. Others possess a floral structure which 

 is very strange to a botanist from the United States. One of 

 them has four small, inconspicuous, deciduous staminate 

 flowers right in the center of the receptacle, which are sur- 

 rounded by a row of large achenia surmounted by hooked 

 spines and small corollas, and becoming in fruit sharp-thorned 

 burrs that are a great nuisance. Another large and succu- 

 lent plant bears along the upper side of its curving stems 

 rows of the most beautiful variegated green and white 

 rosettes, looking as if made in a milliner's shop for a lady's 

 bonnet. Still another species has conglomerate heads, the 

 outer involucre consisting of three large foliaceous scales, 

 and within many separate bundles of heads, each bundle 

 furnished with a set of scales, and each head with its own 

 proper scales. I have found several species which bear these 

 peculiar compound heads. The strangest of all is a com- 

 posite which has only one sheathing involucral scale. Per- 

 haps, however, as the scale bears five small lobes at the 

 summit, it may be said that five scales have so completely 

 coalesced as to appear only one. This flower runs all to 5's. 

 The involucre has five lobes, and also five rows of curious 

 yellow glands sunk beneath its surface. There are five 

 (lowers in the head, five pappus scales, five lobes to the 

 corollas, and five stamens. Besides, it is stipulate : the 

 stipules consisting of three-branched, and sometimes of five- 

 branched hairs. Some of the composites have leaves with a 

 a curious margin not described in the books, bearing at in- 

 tervals lunate indentures or depressions, each with a corres- 

 ponding brownish lunate gland, sunk below the surface of 

 the leaf, a short distance beneath it. 



The LeguminosEe rank next in number to the Composite 

 presenting innumerable species of Acacia, Mimosa. Cassia. 

 Phaseolus, and other genera. Then come the Asclepiadacea 

 and Bignoniaceae, many of which, perhaps the most, are 

 lianas that clamber our shrubs and trees, with conspicuous 

 flowers and fruits. Of the former, two species have inter- 



• 



ested me exceedingly. They belong to that curious South 

 American genus, the Araujia. Some of the readers of the 

 Gazette may remember an article in the American Nat- 



