April 25, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



163 



perspiration we were glad to find shelter in an unused hut 

 of the ice-gatherers, formed of small poles neatly tied 

 together, and covered, roof and sides, with a thatch of 

 coarse grass. Two Indians had come before us to pass 

 the night there, and had started a fire in the centre of the 

 hut, so we all lay down together and passed the long 

 night between sleeping and waking and keeping up the 

 fire. When day dawned I was out in the frost, collecting 

 on the spring-banks of a brook Senecio Tolucanus, D.C. , 

 var. modestus, Sch. Bip. After breakfast we started along 

 a path leading to the peak, frightening, as we proceeded, 

 groups of black cattle grazing the grassy openings of the 

 mountain-top. Here were common great clumps of 

 Lupinus Mexicanus, sometimes woody below and ten feet 

 tall ; Pentstemon campanulatus ; Euphorbia campestris and 

 Crypsinna stricta, the largest of bunch Grasses. Here and 

 there showed the scarlet of Castilleia lithospermoides or 

 C. tenuiflora. On the mountain-crest beside the peak was 

 found Vaccinium geminiflorum, H. B. K., then in flower ; 

 an occasional plant of Draba Jorullensis, H. B. K., in fruit, 

 and an immature Arenaria, apparently. On the ledges was 

 a prostrate Juniper, and this short list was all I noticed 

 there. The sharp splintered peak appeared perilous to 

 climb, and altogether uninviting to a collector. From a 

 rocky knob beside it we looked off southward upon the 

 volcano, a dry cone with rounded top, in which no crater 

 was visible. It stood below our level and but two or 

 three miles distant. Beyond the volcano and across val- 

 leys at its base, which were green with irrigated cane- 

 fields, lay, in blue haze, serrated ranges, to hide the view 

 of the coast-line. 



Thus, the Nevado of Colima, which I had long antici- 

 pated exploring, proved disappointing, because less alpine 

 in character than I had expected to find it. A scattered 

 forest of the Montezuma Pine, one-third of its trunks dead 

 and its branches whitening, reaches to the base of the sum- 

 mit rocks. All the summit is covered with volcanic ashes 

 and scoria, which do not offer conditions favorable to 

 plant-life. Though called the Nevado, or Snowy Peak, 

 there was no snow on the mountain at the time of my 

 visit. My guide assured me, however,, that May is the 

 only month in which snow is usually absent, since, in the 

 season of rains, any storm which will fall in the form of 

 rain below, may for a time whiten the upper peak with snow. 



Turning back before midday, I collected Arcenthobium 

 robustum, Engelm., a parasite abundant on the stunted 

 Pines of the higher elevations, noted Alnus acuminata, Salix 

 lasiolepis, Arbutus varians, and various Oaks mingling with 

 the Pines from a little below the summit, lingered for an 

 hour about the base to gather from Oak-trees specimens of 

 another fine parasite, Loranthus microphyllus, H. B. K., 

 and then pushing back to town with my back-load of 

 specimens, reached home at the close of day. Could I 

 have paid another visit to this mountain in August, as was 

 my intention when I left it, and especially could I have 

 explored certain wet ravines 6n its sides, somewhat better 

 results would, doubtless, have been my reward ; yet the 

 sparseness of vegetation on the loose dry soil, and the 

 absence of dead stems, plainly told of a meagre flora, and 

 this estimate of the vegetation of the Nevado was con- 

 firmed by a later ascent upon its opposite side. 



Charlotte, Vt. C. G. Pltilgle. 



Monoecious or Polygamous Poplars and Willows. 



IN connection with the recent notice in Garden and For- 

 est (p. 128) regarding the presence in this country of 

 the staminate flowers of Salix Babylonica, it may be worth 

 while to call attention to an occasional variation in the 

 manner of flowering of some Willows, and sometimes of 

 their near allies, the Poplars. Mr. Thomas Meehan has 

 published in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia for 1893, p. 289, a note on a mo- 

 noecious case of Populus tremuloides, in which distinctly 

 male and female catkins were found separate, but on the 

 same plant, while other catkins bore both stamens and 



pistils on separate scales on the same catkin. Last season 

 two wild plants of Populus tremuloides in the Arnold Arbo- 

 retum were noted as bearing similar monoecious flowers, 

 and herbarium specimens of these were preserved. The 

 trees were small and growing on a dry, gravelly bank, and 

 besides the monoecious flowers there were some which 

 were apparently perfect. Both staminate and pistillate cat- 

 kins occurred separately, and there were other catkins with 

 both distinctly staminate and pistillate flowers intermixed 

 on the same catkin. A good many flowers were each pro- 

 vided with an apparently well-developed pistil, which was 

 accompanied by from one to half a dozen or more sta- 

 mens. Sometimes the anthers of these flowers seemed 

 imperfect ; but in most cases they appeared quite normal, 

 dehisced regularly, and were well filled with their charac- 

 teristic pollen. Occasionally a catkin was found with 

 scarcely a dozen pistillate flowers, all the others being 

 staminate. But in most cases the pistillate flowers were 

 most numerous in the catkin. Sometimes the basal half of a 

 catkin showed a tendency to bear almost purely staminate 

 flowers, while on the terminal half they were nearly all 

 pistillate, but generally they were intermixed. Fully one- 

 third of all the catkins were purely staminate. On a pis- 

 tillate tree, laden with catkins, a very few small belated 

 male catkins were found. These plants were particularly 

 observed on the 28th of April, by which time a large pro- 

 portion of the male flowers had shed all their pollen. An 

 examination of the same plants this season showed similar 

 variations from the normal mode of flowering. 



In vol. iii., 1878, page 51, of the Botanical Gazette, Mr. 

 George E. Davenport records similar observations on this 

 Poplar at Medford, Massachusetts. He also states that he 

 was told by Professor Goodale that Mr. Bailey (presumably 

 Professor W. W. Bailey) had found similar flowers on 

 Populus balsamifera at Providence, Rhode Island. 



In the note referred to, Mr. Meehan remarks : "Changes 

 of sexual characters in dioecious plants are not uncommon, 

 but have probably not been recorded before in connection 

 with Salicaceous plants. The author has a large number 

 of species of Willow growing on his grounds. All these 

 were subsequently examined carefully, but no similar case 

 of sexual change was found among them." 



Monoecious cases among Willows, however, are not 

 considered as very rare by those who have had occasion 

 to carefully and frequently study these plants. Very often 

 both male and female flowers are found on the same cat- 

 kin ; sometimes they are on different catkins on the same 

 tree or shrub. There do not appear to be many published 

 notes of such cases in this country, perhaps the most recent 

 being by Mr. C. L. Anderson in Zoe, vol. L, 1890, page 41, 

 which refers to a supposed hybrid between Salix Babylonica 

 and S. lasiandra in California. 



That monoecious or polygamous cases among Willows 

 have long been known, is indicated by the fact that Lin- 

 naeus gave the name of Salix hermaphroditica to a species 

 or form. In Host's celebrated monograph of Salix, pub- 

 lished in Vienna in 1828, there are excellent figures of S. 

 mirabilis (fig. 46) and of S. montana (fig. 73) exhibiting the 

 deviations from the normal arrangement. These figures 

 show both sexes on the same catkins or branches. Host 

 also refers to the peculiarity in other species both in the 

 monograph and in his Flora Auslriaca, published in 1831. 

 A reference to the monoecious habit in S. Hoppeana is 

 made by Willdenow in the Species Plantarum, published in 

 1805; and Sir J. E. Smith, in the English Flora (vol. iv., 

 1828), mentions several species which bear both staminate 

 and pistillate flowers on separate catkins on the same 

 plants or in the same catkins. 



There are numerous other references in the literature of 

 European botany to this variation in the habit of flowering 

 of the Willows. The subject is an interesting one to note, 

 and any careful observer is liable to come across such ex- 

 amples when taking spring rambles where shrubby Willows 

 are plentiful. r c r ■/• 



Arnold Arboretum. J- '- T - JaCti. 



