January 23, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



149 



family; also a Paullinia, a woody vine; a 

 Cupania, of the SapindaceEe, etc. 



2. A river flora, including a marginal flora 

 on periodically submerged banks and a sub- 

 merged flora upon islands; chiefly a mass of 

 tangled vines. Eiver-bank trees, of which 

 specimens were shown, included a Gecropia of 

 the Fig family; and Inga, a relative of the 

 acacia, a tree which becomes a mass of 

 flowers frequented by hundreds of humming- 

 birds. Another tree, Recastophyllum, has its 

 hollow stems always inhabited by myriads of 

 formidable ants with a sting hot as fire. 

 Shrubs of the marginal flora include many 

 with a milky juice, as Tahernaemontana, and 

 many gorgeous-blooming species of Solanum. 

 Woody vines were largely of the BignoniaccEe; 

 drinkable water was obtained from one which 

 climbed perhaps 100 feet. Marginal river 

 herbs shown included a Spigelia, source of a 

 valuable drug, especially important now that 

 the Spigelia of the southern United States 

 is disappearing. A Cuphea with orange 

 flowers made a magnificent display. A Heli- 

 conia (H. pendula) of the Zingiberacese, re- 

 sembles a drooping orchid. Sphenoclea, an 

 introduced member of the Lobelia family 

 from India, covered low places. Island trees 

 include several large drupe-bearing species of 

 Moquilea and Licania, related to our plum, 

 and producing a wood valued there for char- 

 coal-making. 



3. Along the setbacks of high-water periods, 

 lakes remain as the water recedes, alternating 

 with partly dried exposed levels, which pro- 

 duce peculiarly dense and terrible swamps. 

 The lakes become covered with vegetation 

 which resembles a meadow at a distance. 

 This swamp flora includes floating and her- 

 baceous aquatics and shrubby thickets like 

 chaparral. Trees occur with roots nearly 

 exposed during the dry season. The swamp 

 flora includes many trees of the Eubia family, 

 with valuable wood; a profusion of shrubby 

 Laniana and Eupatorium; various vines, as 

 the Securidaca of the Polygala family; herbs, 

 as Jussima of the Onagrace88, etc. 



4. A tidal flora extends some forty miles 

 in breadth along the coast, where the villages 

 are built on piles. The littoral flora at the 



ocean edge is soon replaced by an inland 

 tidal flora, chiefly of stout fan-leaved palms 

 of different species, from the short spiny 

 palms of the river-margins to the tall smooth 

 palms of the hills. 



Dr. Eusby found but few orchids; two ex- 

 hibited were a beautiful lonopsis and a Hab- 

 enaria of curious floating habit, growing 

 where the water beneath was fifteen feet deep. 

 One of the palms occurring there is remark- 

 able for its elevated base, raised about four 

 feet by means of spiny outward stilts 

 (roots?); its smooth trunk rises upward 

 about forty feet. 



In answer to inquiries. Dr. Eusby said that 

 his collections were made during six weeks, 

 beginning in April; that though he found 

 many flowers, he concluded that flowering and 

 seed production at any time is comparatively 

 the exception in the tropics, nature relying 

 chiefly on the continuance of plants by vege- 

 tative processes. Much of the country vis- 

 ited was uninhabited; the Imataca Moun- 

 tains, about twenty-five miles distant, had 

 never, it would seem, been visited even by the 

 Indians of the region. Dr. Eusby attempted 

 to penetrate through the twenty-five miles of 

 swamp in vain, making but nine miles in 

 three weeks, and then turning back exhausted 

 with forcing his way over the swamp water. 

 Two of his men, with boards fastened to the 

 feet somewhat in the manner of snowshoes, 

 afterwards crossed the swamps to these moun- 

 tains, and were rewarded by the discovery of 

 a ' lace-work fall ' hundreds of feet in height, 

 but from inaccessible cliffs. 



The evening's program closed with the ex- 

 hibition by Dr. Underwood of a sterile my- 

 celium of a fungus of the nature of a Poly- 

 porus, growing recently beneath the new 

 North German Lloyd docks. 



Edward S. Burgess, 



Secretary. 



COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GEOLOGICAL JOURNAL CLUB. 



Novemher 21. — Professor J. F. Kemp re- 

 viewed ' Etude sur le Point de fusion des 

 mineraux et sur las consequences petro- 

 graphiques,' par A. Brun. He then reviewed 

 an unpublished paper by Professor W. C. 



