354 Canadian Record of Science. 



The " Button- wood " (Conocarpus), with its conspicuous 

 silvery leaves, nourishes on every hand. 



Green Turtle Key has the most varied flora of all, in 

 proportion to its size, owing probably to the fact that it 

 alone among the smaller islands is inhabited by man. The 

 cocoanut palm flourishes in beauty and vigor at one end of 

 the Key, though the natives make very little use of the 

 fruit themselves. 



One island, named Cocoanut Key, is covered with a grove 

 of these trees, planted some seven years ago. One of the 

 most interesting remembrances of the trip is that of a 

 morning spent on this key, where the cocoanut palm may 

 be seen in all stages of growth, from flowering to the produc- 

 tion of the ripe fruit, while beneath the trees, the fallen parts 

 suggest most plainly the economic uses to which the plant 

 may be put, I could get no evidence that the cocoanut ever 

 grows spontaneously in the Bahamas; it is in all cases 

 planted, and does not bear fruit for six or seven years. 



Many fruit trees now grow wild on Green Turtle Key, 

 such as the banana, orange, lemon, sapodillo, mango, shad- 

 dock, mammee, custard apple (Pawpaw), hog plum, tama- 

 rind, date palm (rare), fig (rare.) 



None of these can be said to be cultivated in the proper 

 sense ; they may, in fact, be found intermingled with shrubs, 

 vines, etc., forming a thicket as dense as any in a Canadian 

 forest, and when caught in one of them, I could not help 

 making the comparison and at the same time noting the 

 contrast. 



Conspicuous on the low sandy region near the shore is 

 the manilla, a species of Agave, with its powerful, long, 

 spiked leaves, and its solitary flower stalk, which reaches a 

 height of at least 20 feet. 



In the same region, a cactus (Opuntia) abounds in large 

 and dense masses. Insects, I observed, play a great part in 

 the fertilization of the flowers of this plant. 



One of our party, Mr. F. H. Herrick, collected and pre- 

 served a considerable number of plants. These were sub- 

 mitted for identification to Prof. Eaton and Mr. W. A. 

 Setchell, of Yale College. The results of their work have 



