TORREYA 



Vol. 30 January-February, 1930 No. 1 



Back Yard Botanizing 



H. A. Gleason 



My home in Bronxville does not occupy a large plot of 

 ground by any means, but it has provided me with an extra- 

 ordinary amount of botanizing during the past seven years. 

 Scores of uninvited guests, some of them welcome, many dis- 

 tinctly unwelcome, have come in and made themselves at home. 

 Some of them have been weeded out and destroyed, some have 

 disappeared naturally, others are still there and defy all my 

 efforts to dislodge them. 



Whence do they come? Many from the little vestiges of 

 original forest vegetation which still are plenty in and around 

 Bronxville; some merely from my neighbors; some in packing 

 or earth or seeds from distant sources; many from places not 

 only unknown but even unconjectured. The point is that they 

 come, some of them every year, some of them once only. One 

 never knows in the spring what the coming summer will produce 

 and every season brings a fresh surprise. Every strange seed- 

 ling is allowed to grow and is carefully watched until it is large 

 enough to identify. That often means waiting until they bloom, 

 and that in turn may lead to a permanent occupant of the garden 

 where we had wished for a mere temporary one. 



In 1928 we were away during the entire growing season and 

 had no idea of what new visitors we may have received. The 

 next year was accordingly of exceptional interest, since we had 

 the immigrants of two years to become acquainted with. 



The systematic botanist likes to classify, and I shall arrange 

 these visitors to my garden in three groups, mentioning many 

 of them by name and discussing some of the more interesting 

 ones in more detail. 



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