532 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 246. 



White Elm (Ulimis Americana), U. crassifolia and U. alata 

 are abundant. What I suspect to be U. crassifolia, as I have 

 no description by me, is at this writing in full-ripe fruit. It 

 blossoms late in summer, and, like other Elms, takes a few 

 weeks only to ripen its fruit. There is also an Elm here in 

 fruit with strongly winged branchlets. Near Fort Smith, Ar- 

 kansas, U. alata was loaded with nearly ripe fruit as early as 

 the 1st of April. 



The Button-bush (Cephalanthus) is common along streams, 

 and the species is sometimes arborescent. I have seen indi- 

 viduals nine inches in diameter. Wild Black Cherry (Prunus 

 serotina) grows near Burnet. Wild Plum (P. Americana) is 

 abundant. The handsome little shrub Dalea frutcscens is 

 common on the summit of Post Mountain, and there the west- 

 ern Honeysuckle (Lonicera albiliora) begins to appear. 



Vernonia Lindheimeri is everywhere on the limestone hills 

 of central Texas. On richer soils lower down the hillsides, a 

 handsome Erythrasa during the month of August covers the 

 ground witli its bright pink flowers. 



Mesquit (Prosopis juliflora) is nearly everywhere, and Texas 

 would hardly be Texas without it. With woodservingforfuel, 

 and seeds for animals, and for human beings when hunger 

 pinches, it is invaluable for beast and man. Usually a small 

 tree, it often becomes sixty or seventy feet tall, and two feet or 

 more in diameter. 



In rocky places, conspicuous by its long lithe branches 

 covered with small, white and sweetly scented flowers, grows 

 Lippia ligustrina. It is often seen in cultivation, to which its 

 beauty and odor entitle it. There is no Texas shrub whose 

 flowering sprays are better adapted for delicate, odorous bou- 

 quets. Eysenhardtia amorphoides, a small shrub of the Pea 

 family, is often found in company with Lippia. Although 

 burdened with such a name, it bears handsome white 

 flowers that are pleasantly odorous. Soapberry (Sapindus 

 acuminatus) is often seen in this region, where it becomes a 

 handsome tree. It is more commonly known in the south as 

 "Wild China," from the resemblance of its unripe fruit to 

 that of the China tree, Melia Azedarach. Sapindus seems to 

 have overlooked the fact that high botanical authority asserts 

 that the common petiole of its compound leaf is never winged ; 

 and it persists in making its common petiole strongly mar- 

 gined or winged between the leaflets, at least in young trees, 

 as specimens collected in Kansas and in Texas show. The 

 Mexican Buckeye (Ungnadia speciosa) is very abundant on 

 rocky banks and bluffs throughout our range. It grows east- 

 ward as far as Harris County, and extends far westward. 

 Commonly a small shrub, it sometimes becomes a tree of re- 

 spectable size. The largest individuals that I have seen were 

 on the banks of La Vaca River, near Halletsville. They were 

 over a foot in diameter and thirty feet tall. The discovery of 

 this species, as botanists know, marks an epoch in systematic 

 botany. The fact of its being really a pinnately leaved Buck- 

 eye, gave us Sapindacese in its present form. The rose- 

 colored flowers are large and handsome. Each cell of its tri- 

 angular fruit contains a shining dark brown, small roundish 

 seed, closely resembling a small Buckeye-seed. 



The forms of Rhus copallina, known as variety lanceolata and 

 variety leucantha, are very common west of the ninety-seventh 

 meridian. Toxicodendron is nearly everywhere. This species, 

 as now defined, is in a sadder condition tlian even Celtis. It 

 is often seen climbing seventy-five to one hundred feet high, 

 throwing out strong horizontal branches sometimes ten feet 

 long. It is sometimes a weak, straggling, nearly erect shrub ; 

 a low form, not more than a foot or two tall, covers hundreds 

 of acres of the prairies of western Kansas. The western 

 form of R. Canadensis is also common in rocky places. R. 

 virens, with handsome evergreen leaves, is found along 

 Colorado River and on the mountains near Llano. Its rather 

 large white flowers appear in September, and are succeeded 

 by bright red fruit. 



At Marble Falls I met for the first time in Texas Solanum 

 heterodoxum. It closely simulates S. rostratruni, having the 

 same watermelon-like leaves ; but they are more viscid and 

 the plant is taller and slimmer, and has bright blue flowers. 

 S. eteagnifolium, S. Torreyi, S. nigrum and S. triquetrum are 

 common. The last-named species is slender-stemmed and 

 clambers over rocks and bushes. Its specific name alludes 

 to its somewhat triangular stems. 



Granite Mountain gave me my first view of the handsome 

 fern, Pellsea ternata. P. flexuosa is very abundant along 

 the rocky bluffs of Colorado River, and both species, with 

 other ferns, grow on Sand .Stone Mountain, near Llano. 

 Around the mountain and everywhere in sandy places the east- 

 ern Zornia tetraphylla grows like a weed. It is here slighter and 

 more erect than it is in the east. Philibertia undulata is 



rarely found near Llano, and also Desmodium Wrightii, re- 

 markable for being unifoliate. 



Galactia heterophylla grows abundantly in the streets of 

 Llano. This species was first discovered by Lindheimer 

 somewhere along Llano River. It is, so far as known, a 

 strictly Texan species, and has been in only two or three 

 other stations in that state. It is noted for sometimes making 

 itself an extra pair of leaflets, thus becoming partially five- 

 foliate. The peculiar Talinum lineare, handsome Oxalis ves- 

 pertilionis, one or two species of Menodora, Cassia Lind- 

 heimeri, C. Pumilio and the black-eyed form of CEnothera 

 serratula begin to appear near the Colorado River in Burnet 

 County. 



While at Llano I set out on a search for Mollugo cerviana. 

 This rare and little-known plant was discovered by Dr. 

 Palmer about twelve years ago, for the first time in Texas, 

 near Bluffton, on Colorado River. That station is about thirty 

 miles from Llano. My labor was rewarded by finding a 

 single specimen. Two or three days later I found another 

 individual, and almost despaired of finding more. But I 

 found it subsequently in abundance in another locality. It 

 delights in fine granitic sands, where little else will grow. 

 This species has nearly the flowers of M. occidentalis, from 

 which its narrowly linear glaucous leaves will readily distin- 

 guish it. These stations in Llano County are the only known 

 Texas stations for this plant. It has, however, been collected 

 in New Mexico and in Arizona. Collectors will doubtless 

 find the species abundant, as I did, along the left bank of 

 Pecan Creek, a little way above the highway bridge, and a 

 mile or so west of North Llano. Little Dichondra repens is 

 abundant in Texas wherever I have been. It is called a coast 

 plant. It is found along the coast, but more abundantly away 

 from it. I first met it at Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Cissus stans, 

 which, however, seldom stands, and often climbs by tendrils 

 thirty to forty feet high, with C. incisa, and C. Ampelopsis are 

 found within the range of these observations. The southern 

 Dewberry (Rubus trivialis) is also here and westward to the 

 Rio Grande. Its stems are sometimes twenty feet long. 



Lampasas, Texas. E. N. Plank. 



Mid-October in West Virginia. 



THE Sour Gum (Nyssa aquatica) is, perhaps, the most beau- 

 tiful of trees in mid-October here, yet its glory is fleeting. 

 The earliest of trees to don its garment of brightness, it is the 

 first to lose it, and now stands naked and forlorn, while its less 

 brilliant neighbors, the Oaks, have scarcely lost a leaf. Twin 

 Gum-trees, standing six feet apart on rising ground in the 

 midst of the grove at Rose Brake, made a splendid picture for 

 a few bright sunny days of the second week in October, all the 

 more noticeable from the scarcity of brilliant coloring in the 

 warm dry weather that still prevails. Now the trees are 

 stripped and the ground beneath them glows with scarlet, fast 

 withering to brown. These twin trees are unusually high- 

 colored in October, the leaves turning a uniform bright red. 

 Other Gum-trees in this grove never take on such deep tints, 

 but are, perhaps, even more beautiful, because more varied, 

 with red, orange, pink and green, as the sunlight blends their 

 colors into indescribably lovely effects. Few trees pos- 

 sess so much individuality as these isolated specimens of 

 Nyssa aquatica, with their varnished leaves, irregular forms 

 and gnarled and crooked branches. The effect of their fantas- 

 tic outlines is far more pleasing than the most formal sym- 

 metry. To no other tree does the word picturesque more 

 appropriately apply. The individual leaves of the Gum-trees 

 hereabout are almost always marred by the singular little 

 larvce that prey upon them. Sitting under the trees in late 

 September, I used to wonder at the curious oblong "seeds," 

 as I supposed them to be, that fell whenever a light breeze 

 shook their foliage. Once, to my horror, I found one of the 

 "seeds" endowed with voluntary motion and slowly and awk- 

 wardly endeavoring, by a series of galvanic jerks and somer- 

 saults, to explore the shawl upon which I sat. A little dark 

 head emerged, and tiny feelers laid hold upon the woolly-sur- 

 face shawl, and then I cut short the enterprise by taking up the 

 explorer, bed and all, to examine. There it was, snugly tucked 

 between two leaf-blankets, a worm or larva about one-third as 

 long as my little finger-nail. It had preyed upon the leaf of 

 the Gum-tree, and, not content with board, exacted bed and 

 shelter as well from its unwilling landlord. Afterward I found, 

 by holding the leaves up to the light, many an intruder be- 

 tween the upper and lower surfaces eating away the tissues of 

 the leaf and never risking its own precious skin in return. All 

 its active larva-life seems to be spent in this manner from the 

 time it hatches from the tiny egg which the mother moth lays 



