320 TlMEHRI. 



bush (Sesbania aegyptiaca) , a straggling, thin-branched 

 bush, of any height from one to ten feet, abundant in 

 the autumn but dying down in the early part of the year. 

 The flowers are yellow, and the greenish yellow exterior 

 of the standard is profusely specked as if with tiny 

 " blacks" from a smoky lamp. The leaves are pinnate 

 or divided into several leaflets, in this kind from ten to 

 eighteen pairs, and the numerous long narrow pods are 

 compressed between each seed, so as to give them a 

 studded, almost beaded appearance. Its fibre is used 

 in the East for rope-making, but it cannot be said to be 

 either useful or ornamental here, though too common to 

 be passed without notice. 



A more valuable plant, the pigeon-pea or no-eye-pea 

 (Cajanus indicus) , of East Indian origin, has been so 

 long cultivated throughout tropical America that it often 

 occurs as a wild plant. It is too familiar to residents to 

 need description, but may be characterized for new- 

 comers as a slender bush six or eight feet high, with 

 orey-green trifoliate leaves, yellow flowers, and pods 

 with slanting depressions between each pea, pro- 

 ducing a diagonally striped appearance. This pea 

 is the most easily cultivated crop we have, requiring 

 neither clearing nor subsequent weeding of the ground ; 

 the only hard work seems to fall on the daughter of the 

 house, who has to cry the produce through the town in 

 the shrill nasal accents that we know so well. 



The last yellow papilionaceous flower that we need 

 mention belongs to a slender shrub at once distinguished 

 by its sensitive pinnate leaves, the marsh shame-bush 

 or bastard sensitive plant (ALschynomene sensitiva). It 

 is common near water, and has small yellowish flowers 



