700 General Notes. [ November, 
THE HOUSTONIA ROTUNDIFOLIA PRODUCING DOUBLE FLOWERS.— 
Though Chapman limits the Houstonia rotundifolia Michx., to 
“sandy soil near the coast,” I found it quite common in the cen- 
tral or lake region of Florida. At Santa Fe lake, Fla., on Janu- 
ary 14, 1878, I met an instance of this plant producing double 
flowers. Each beautiful little snow-white blossom was so crowded 
with petals as to form a perfect tiny rosette ; the other parts varied 
in there being three pistils having exserted styles, while there 
were five included stamens. Several of the inner petals also were 
tipped with anthers, resembling the same feature in the water-lily. 
The plant grew under an old fence, the rails of which were par- 
tially decayed; but there were otherwise no artificial surround- 
ings to which the peculiarity might be ascribed. The dimorphous 
character of the flowers in the genus Houstonia is worth recalling 
in this connection, and it is further noteworthy that the species 
under consideration bears apetalous fruiting flowers throughout 
the year—AHenry Gillman, Detroit, Michigan. 
A Succestion.—To mark the relative frequency of species in 
a local flora the botanists always use the terms, common, abundant, 
frequent, scarce, rare, very rare, etc. This is not sufficient when 
divided into ten equal parts of ten square miles each. We would 
mark a species which occurs in each of those parts with the 
Roman figure x, when only in five with v, when only in one with 
1, etc. This would show the distribution of a plant over the 
whole area in question. Of course when a plant grows only in 
swamps, or on prairies, or in woods, these figures would indicate 
only the occurrence in so many parts of swamp land, prairie 
land, or wood land, and it would be necessary that the flora be 
“each species in each lacality could be marked by an Arabic fig- 
ure from 1 to 10. So 1.1 would mean only a single specimen 
found on a single locality, 1. 2 a few specimens, 1.3 4 1 
Ag 
| nother 
marked 11. 2 neither, when those marked with x. 10, X. 9, EE AO 
ould be of a decided influence, giving the view 4. 
