25O BOTANICAL GAZETTE. [ October, 



in herborizing in Paraguay. If he succeeds in capturing rare 

 botanical treasures, he can not do it without much trouble. 

 He either runs the risk of broken limbs in the attempt to 

 climb high trees, or of sore wounds if he incautiously catches 

 hold of a shrub or a liana. Nearly every arborescent plant 

 is armed with stout, sharp thorns, which tear his clothing 

 and very likely something else more sensitive than cloth. 

 Here is a lovely Acacia, with bright yellow blossoms, which 

 I covet, but in an instant it has caught my coat at a dozen 

 points with its keen hooked spines. If I attempt to tear 

 myself away, lo ! several great rents in my coat, and unfor- 

 tunately no fireside companion at hand to make the rent:- 

 whole again. If I cut oft' a branch with a jerk of the knife, 

 half a dozen deep gashes in my hand is the result. Here i^ 

 a beautiful climber, the flowers of which I must have, but in 

 order to get it, not only must I encounter the spears of a host 

 of encircling Yuccas and the prickles with which the climber 

 is itself clad, but I must also break through the spiny armor 

 of an Acacia, around which the stems have managed to twine 

 themselves so closely that they can scarcely be touched at a 

 single point without a wound. Again, I see a beautiful shrub, 

 of I know not what genus, which bears a large evergreen 

 leaf and handsome clusters of rose-colored Camellia-like 

 flowers. I hasten to transfer specimens to my portfolio, but 

 hidden under the bright leaves and charming flowers is a 

 stem bristling at intervals of a few inches with verticils ot 

 branching prongs, an inch and a half in length and as sharp 

 as needles, and what is even worse, these needles infuse a 



poison into the wound which thev make and cause it to fes- 

 ter. 



Other plants harbor colonies of ants, by which they seem 

 to be benefitted, or, at least, protected, and if you dare invade 

 their premises they resent it instantly and pour forth in angry 

 swarms. Nor is their bite to be despised. I once plucked a stalk 

 of grass from the ground, and before I could place it in my 

 portfolio my hand was covered with small red ants, whose 

 stings burned like hot coals. It was the "fire ant," insig- 

 nificant enough in looks, but so venomous of sting that every 

 one avoids it. Other colonies climb trees, and with plasters 

 of mud convert old birds' nests into habitations, which it is 

 really quite dangerous to molest except with lighted matches. 

 On another occasion, while leaning down to collect plants, I 

 happened to place my hand against the trunk of a dead tree, 

 but a sharp stinging sensation soon warned me that my hand 



