DESCRIPTIONS AND NOTES FROM THE BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 527 
first collected it about 50 years ago; it isa small tree with dark ash-gray branchlets bearing numerous long (1} to 2 
inches long) stout, straight spines ; leaves spathulate or obovate, obtuse, attenuate into a short petiole or almost sessile, 
simply serrate towards the upper part, 3 to 1} inches long; those of the shoots similar or acutish, often doubly or in- 
cisely serrate or slightly lobed, with linear glandular stipules, all persistently pubescent ; compound corymb woolly; 
tlowers large, calyx lobes linear, entire ; styles 3; fruit unknown. — [Nov. 1882, vol. vii.] 
PLANTAGO PUSILLA, Nutt.— The ordinary form of Missouri and Illinois, where it is common, and as far as [175] 
I can see of the Eastern States, where it is much rarer, has linear or filiform entire leaves, scapes 2 to 4 or rarel 
6 inches high, obtusish or subacute bracts of the length of the orbicular sepals, and short oval slightly exsert capsules, 
4 seeds, about 1.3 mm. or 0.6 line long. 
Var. MACROSPERMA is a larger form, 4 to 7 inches high, with longer, much exsert capsules ; seeds nearly twice 
the length of the last, 2.4 mm. or 1.2 lines long. — Saline soil of the western plains; on the Cheyenne River, Nicollet, 
and near the mouth of the Yellowstone River, Hayden. 
Var. MAJor, much larger and stouter, leaves lanceolate-linear, often 14 to 2 lines wide, the larger ones laciniate 
with few long teeth or lobes; scapes densely woolly at base, with the elongated spike often 9 inches high; bracts 
acute, longer than the sepals; seeds intermediate in size between the two other forms, — Near Atoka, north of Red 
River in the Indian Territory, G. D. Butler. 
Dr. A. Gray thinks that he has proofs that this species, or probably the second form of it, is the lost P. 
elongata, Pursh, Fl. Suppl. p. 729, but even if so, Nuttall’s name, now well known since more than 60 years, [176] 
ought to be retained in place of a doubtful and very inappropriate one.— The three closely allied species, P. 
Bigelovii and P. pusilla with 4 seeds, and P. heterophylla with numerous ones, have all pitted seeds, well seen only in 
perfectly mature specimens. The seeds become gelatinous when wet. — [Feb. 1883, vol. viii.] 
MorrHonoey or SPINES. 
In an illustrated paper lately laid before the German Botanical Society, Dr. I. Urban, of Berlin, proves [338] 
that the spines of Aurantiace are not, as has been generally assumed, abortive branchlets, such as we find in 
Crategus, Gleditschia, and many other ligneous plants. He shows that they are the abnormally developed basal leaves 
or bud scales of the axillary bud. A pair of these scales is found on both sides of the bud; sometimes both of them 
are developed into spines, and then the small bud itself is found between and a little above them. In other cases the 
scales are unequally developed into a small and a larger spine, but more frequently only one of them grows out into 
aspine. In this latter case the spine assumes an almost axillary position, and the rest of the bud, with the other 
lateral (originally opposite) minute scale, is pushed sideways and upwards, so that it assumes the position generally 
ascribed to it by those who have treated on this subject, seemingly above the spine, thus simulating a secondary bud 
above the primary one, which would be the spine. But the bud will always be found a little sideways of a line 
drawn from the centre of the axil upwards, and the other lateral bud scale can always be discovered on the other side 
of the bud. Where there are a pair of unequally developed spines the case becomes quite plain. 
In connection with this and other strange developments of different organs into spines, it occurred to me that 
my observations on the morphology of the spines of Fourquiera, made nearly thirty years ago, seem to have escaped 
botanists; though I have often spoken of them, I have never published anything about them. 
small specimen of Fouguiera splendens, sent to me from New Mexico, vegetated well enough for many 
months, continuing to make its fasciculated spatulate subsessile leaves from the undeveloped branchlets in the axils of 
the spines, without showing any further growth, till after a heavy thunderstorm and rain with sultry weather, a vig- 
orous shoot sprang suddenly from one of the uppermost of these axils and developed scattered leaves of the same 
form, but larger, and borne on long (say 4 inch long) horizontal petioles, while the leaf-blade was nearly erect. 
In the fall these leaves began to wither and to fall, but not, as one might have expected, at the insertion of the [339] 
petiole on the axil, nor at the junction of the blade with the petiole; the withered upper half of the petiole 
separated from the persistent indurated under part in a diagonal plane, so that this indurated part was stoutest at its 
insertion on the axis, and ran out into a sharp point, while the deciduous part of the petiole was thickest at its con- 
* nection with the blade, and fell off with it, leaving a spine which persists as long as the stem does, and which from its 
axil produces the short spurs with their fasciculated leaves mentioned above. The formation of these different axes 
and their leaves resembles that of Larix, but the morphology of the spines is, as far as I know, quite unique.* — 
(1883, vol. viii 
* This was noted by Charles Wright, long ago. See Plante Wrightiane, ii. 63. — Eps. 
