LAWNS FOR SUBTROPICAL REGIONS II5 



regions is the fog plant (Lippia nodiflora). 



Dr. F. Franceschi of Santa Barbara has 

 given most favourable reports on its behaviour 

 in southern California, lawns having been 

 successfully established where otherwise no 

 sort of success has been achieved. 



Dr. Franceschi gives this account of its 

 introduction : 



"It was in 1869, barely one year before 

 the fall of the second Empire, when the cen- 

 tennial of the first Napoleon was celebrated 

 with great festivities at his birthplace, Ajaccio, 

 in Corsica. The Superintendent of Parks of 

 the City of Florence, Signor Pucci, to whom 

 the floral decorations had been entrusted, 

 was quite struck with Lippia, as it had been 

 used in the public garden of Ajaccio. He took 

 some with him to Florence, and put it on 

 trial in one of the public gardens. There it 

 did so well that it soon spread to other parts 

 of Italy, and particularly along the Riviera, 

 where the climatic conditions are very much 

 hke southern California. 



"In the year 1898 my daughter who had 

 recently come from Italy, called my attention 

 to the fact that for several years already 

 Lippia had been used to carpet the esplanade 



