September 20, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



393 



Contrary, perhaps, to the general notion in regard to this 

 portion of Texas, most of the state south of the Southern Pa- 

 cific Railroad, and west of the meridian of San Antonio, is a 

 forested region. But it is a forest of shrubs, and of the mean- 

 est and the wickedest shrubs imaginable — dry-country shrubs, 

 which have struggled so long and so hard for an existence 

 amid floods and long-continued droughts and extreme heat, 

 that they have become literally case-hardened and completely 

 perverted in their ways. That they may be better protected, 

 they have armed themselves with prickles and thorns and 

 have set themselves in a most effectual way against animated 

 nature. There are thorns terminal and thorns axillary ; thorns 

 single or clustered, straight or recurved, on stem, leaves, even 

 on fruit, pointing in all directions, and ready to tear one's 

 clothes or flesh, as either may be presented to their cruel 

 points. Mexicans, having exhausted the rest of their vocabu- 

 lary of epithets, call some of these shrubs " Una del gato " 

 (Cat-claw). Such thorns will penetrate the leather of gloves 

 and boots almost as easily as the untanned human skin. A 

 botanist in this region is specially favored if he escapes with 

 only bleeding hands. When these shrubs mass themselves, 

 the thicket is impenetrable for beast or man. 



In extenuation of such a condition of perpetual war, these 

 shrubs plead, and perhaps effectually, the common right and 

 law of self-defense — unfavorable climatic conditions prevent- 

 ing their complete development, and causing the starved and 

 stunted growth which changes their leaves and branchlets 

 into weapons of defense ; to which may be added the ravages 

 of herb-eating animals, domestic and feral, which, unless the 

 shrubs were armed from base to summit, would soon destroy 

 all of them within their reach. Granting, however, the well- 

 taken plea of self-defense put in by the shrubs, it is still true 

 that they do not discriminate between friends and foes. 



We stopped for a few days at the pleasant little village of 

 Pearsall, lying about fifty miles south-west of San Antonio. 

 The people of Pearsall are very modest in their ways, for, 

 while their town contains nearly a thousand persons, they still 

 call it a village. Its location is very nearly on the ninety-ninth 

 meridian. It is a little south of the twenty-ninth parallel. The 

 town is built upon a slight eminence of dark brown ferrugi- 

 neous sand-stone, the disintegration of which forms the 

 coarse sand of the region about. Such a rock formation gives 

 a flora very different from that of the region where our latest 

 Notes left us. There are few places in Texas, so far eastward, 

 where we could see six or seven species of Acacia, at least 

 two species of Parkinsonia, and representatives of many other 

 genera of shrubs and smaller plants. Most of them are Mexi- 

 can forms. 



Galactia heterophylla is common here, as might be sup- 

 posed from its soil-condition. This is a new station for the 

 species. Since my visit to Pearsall I have found this plant very 

 abundant in the vicinity of Beeville, also a hitherto unreported 

 station for it. The known range of the species may now be 

 given as extending from Llano County, on the north-eastward, 

 to the ninety-seventh meridian, and southward to the Rio 

 Grande, or near it. It still remains, so far as known, an ex- 

 clusively Texan plant. 



At Pearsall we encounter Rhus microphylla, a respectable 

 and rather handsome Sumach, remarkable in the family for 

 its very small leaflets, of which the descriptive name is signifi- 

 cant. They are only about a half-inch long. The main rachis 

 is winged between the pairs of leaflets. Its red acid fruit has 

 a turpentine flavor. The species is innocuous. Mexicans call 

 it Correosa. We may call it Small-leaved Sumach. It ex- 

 tends far westward. Ephedra antisiphilitica is common here. 

 It is one of the few native species of the gymnospermous 

 order Gnetace^. This shrub has a greenish "Rush-like habit, 

 by which it may easily be distinguished, as well as by its pecu- 

 liar flowers and fruit. Its coarse, rather rigid, branches are 

 nearly leafless. Mexicans regard its medicinal properties as of 

 great value. It is a wonder that Mexicans ever die, as they 

 have one or more remedies for every disease. While at Pear- 

 sall a Mexican brought in one of the many plant "rattlesnake 

 masters." "It is plain to see," the old man said, " that this 

 plant must be a sure-enough cure for the bite of a rattlesnake. 

 You see that its leaves are spotted like a rattlesnake, and its 

 flower is like the open mouth of one, with its fangs raised, and 

 ready to strike." That is the old doctrine of "signatures" in- 

 tensified. It shows how little reliance can safely be placed 

 upon such asserted remedies. 



Another celebrated Mexican remedy, used also by Ameri- 

 cans, in intermittents, and also as an astringent, is an infusion 

 or a decoction of the bark of Casteta Nicholsoni. This is a 

 handsome evergreen shrub, usually unarmed, but with the 

 tips of its branches sometimes spinose ; the narrowly oblong 



leaves, whitened on the under surface, with recurved margins. 

 The small red flowers are succeeded by two to seven or more 

 rather large, oblong, red drupes, borne on spreading stems. 

 Usually, when the number of drupes is five or more, one is 

 borne in the centre of the ring, and raised so as to form a 

 conical cluster. The intensely bitter principle of the shrub re- 

 sides in the drupes as well as in the back. From a personal 

 trial of the drupes, the writer is not surprised that even an 

 American should refuse to shiver with chills when the penalty 

 for the act is to drink a strong infusion of the bark or of the 

 drupes of " Amargoso," as Mexicans call our plant. I saw only 

 one plant at Pearsall, but it is very common westward, extend- 

 ing into Mexico. Parthonium lyrata is abundant from about 

 this meridian westward. It is a much smaller plant than its 

 congener, P. hysterophorus, from small specimens of which it 

 may readily be distinguished by its lyrate leaves. 



Along the Nueces River and westward grows Jatropha Ber- 

 landieri, a much smaller plant than J. stimulosa, with glau- 

 cous laciniate leaves and red flowers. What it lacks in size 

 above, it largely makes up below, ground in shape of a huge 

 turnip-like root. The plant is commonly known as "Wild 

 Turnip." "In fact," an old ranchman said to me, "it is a 

 regular turnip, though it does not look much like one." Hogs 

 are said to fatten on these turnips when they are abundant. 

 They are also sometimes roasted and eaten by men, but not 

 with much success where the experiment is tried on an exten- 

 sive scale. My informant, who has lived in south-west 

 Texas forty years, said that the turnips possess powerful 

 and dangerous cathartic properties. On two occasions 

 known to him during the war detachments of soldiers who 

 had encamped on the banks of the Nueces ate so freely of 

 these turnips, roasted, that they were detained several days in 

 consequence of their presumption. 



There is no running water nearer Pearsall than Frio River, 

 six or more miles away. The bottoms along the river are 

 heavily timbered, for this region, with Elm, Oak, Hackberry, 

 Soapberry, Ash, and an occasional Cottonwood. The Ash 

 here, as at San Antonio, probably a form of Green Ash, has 

 some of its fruit three-winged. 



Kansas City, Kansas. E. N. Plank. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 London Letter. 



ALTHOUGH the enormous Agricultural Hall at Isling- 

 ^ ton is not well adapted to the exhibition of plants, 

 nothing but praise can be given to the Royal Horticul- 

 tural Society and to the numerous exhibitors for the display 

 of flowers, fruits, plants and garden appliances held there 

 on four days during this week. While Roses, Gladioli and 

 fruit were the principal exhibits, there were many other 

 prominent features, as large groups of Ferns, Palms and 

 other foliage-plants arranged for effect, collections of cut 

 flowers of herbaceous plants and magnificent collections of 

 fruit-trees in pots, bearing heavy crops of large, well- 

 ripened fruits. 



Compared with the summer exhibition held in the gar- 

 dens of the Inner Temple, the number of new and rare 

 plants shown at Agricultural Hall was exceptionally small. 

 It was not, however, intended that this exhibition should 

 be anything other than a big object-lesson in English hor- 

 ticulture for the edification of the enormous population on 

 the north side of London, which rarely, if ever, has an 

 opportunity of seeing the displays made in the West End. 



Among the new and rare plants I noted the following as 

 worthy of special mention : 



CoRNUS MACROPHVLLA VARIEGATA was showii by Messrs. 

 J. Veitch & Sons under the name of C. brachypoda varie- 

 gata, and was awarded a first-class certificate. It was in- 

 troduced by Maries from Japan about fifteen years ago, and 

 has proved hardy at the Coombe Wood nursery of Messrs. 

 Veitch. It is also hardy at Kew. The leaves are ovate- 

 lanceolate, acuminate at both ends, glaucous green, with 

 large patches and marginal creamy white variegation. It 

 is a handsome and apparently easily grown shrub, which 

 is certain to become a popular garden-plant. The type is 

 a variable species, and is a native of the Himalaya as of 

 China and Japan. According to C. B. Clarke, in the Flora 

 0/ British India, it forms an erect tree, forty feet high, with 

 horizontal branches, and ovate leaves six inches by three 



