1887. | BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 161 
develop into more or less perfect flowers. I send you a figure which 
illustrates the appearance of one of these peculiar forus The shrub 
flowers very early in the spring, and ripens a short, thick pod, contain- 
ing from one to three large red seeds, called Indian beans, which are said 
to be pvisonous to children, who sometimes eat them. 
r. J. H. McArthur writes: “Our Angora goats browse freely on the 
shrub, and frequently swallow the beans without ill effects, but that may 
be owing to these being too hard for their teeth to crack, as they are 
found about the pens, having passed through them unbroken.”—GEoRGE 
i 
Thalictrnm purpurascens, var. ceriferam, in North Carolina.— 
Though this species of Thalictrum is not mentioned in Chapman’s Flora 
as occurring in the Southern United States, nor in Curtis’ “ Catalogue of 
the Indigenous and Naturalized Plants of the State of North Carolina, 
yet I have found several plants of the variety ceriferum growing luxuri- 
untly on rocks at Flat Rock, Henderson county It grows to the height 
of five feet and agrees in all respects with the description given on page 
39, Gray’s Manual, the fruit and leaves being covered with “waxy 
atoms” and “exhaling a peculiar odor ;” it was in full flower May 24th.— 
E. R. Memmincer, Flat Rock, N. C. 
Dry weather foliage of the Compass plant.—This immediate section 
of country has been subjected to a prolonged and severe drouth. There 
has been not far from one inch of rainfall since the last snow-storm of 
eeble bloom. The leaves upon trees and shrubs are fewer than usual 
and much reduced in size. 
There are a few kinds of plants that seem to flourish under the 
peculiar arid conditions which now obtain ; but even these are somewhat 
changed in their general appearance. The foliage of the compass plant 
(Silphium laciniatum L.) is particularly noticeable at this time. The 
leaves of this com posite have a strikingly refreshing glossy green which 1s 
in sharp contrast with the strrounding dwarfed and dried herbage. But 
when the foliage is compared with that of its own species, in former 
years, a great change is seen. There may not be very much difference 
in the relative size of the leaves of this year with those of last season, 
but they are more numerous, and each leaf exposes far less surface to 
the hot, drying sun. In short, the average leaf of this Silphium is reduced 
to the midrib, with a thin web of green tissue upon each side, and its 
many lateral veins and their sub-veins bearing narrow ribbons of pulpy 
tissue. In other words, the foliage, true to the specific name, is very 
