7 
have come to the Palmyra cemetery in either of the ways sug- 
gested for the cedar. The presence of Melia Azedarach calls for 
no special comment. Some other woody plants, which may or 
may not have been there originally, are Ulmus fulva, Hicoria 
alba, Smilax lanceolata, and a species of Celtis. The seeds of 
Albizzia, Robinia and Ulmus are distributed by the wind, and 
those of most of the other species by birds. 
Summing up the situation, we have here, in what at the be- 
ginning of the 19th century must have been an upland oak grove 
subject to ground fires (which might be started by lightning in 
pine woods several miles away) running through the dead leaves 
perhaps once in ten years, an assemblage of plants, nearly all of 
them sensitive to fire and foreign to the immediate locality (sev- 
eral of them natives of the Old World), which seem to have been 
maintaining themselves without any conscious effort to protect 
them, for about three-quarters of a century. The surrounding 
road and fields afford pretty good protection from fires origi- 
nating elsewhere, and the dense mass of Vinca major, which 
must be relatively incombustible, furnishes additional protec- 
tion for the trees surrounded by it, which would be effective even 
if the surrounding country was depopulated and reverted to for- 
est. Even if grazing animals should return, they probably would 
not eat the Vinca. 
If the test of naturalization is ability to reproduce from seed 
for several generations without human assistance, Vinca major 
hardly meets that test. (The same might be said of V. minor, 
Lagerstroemia, and several other foreign plants treated as natu- 
ralized in our manuals.) But its persistence for such a long 
Period is rather remarkable. It would be interesting to watch it 
for another century or so, if such a thing were possible, and see 
what happens. Possibly some who read this will know of ana- 
logous cases elsewhere. 
TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA 
