490 General Notes. [ August, 
often this time is extended to ten years. This year, however, all over 
the State, numerous instances have occurred in which seedling oranges 
of not as many months old produced blossoms — the baby trees varying 
in height from one and a half to six inches. Several of these have been 
exhibited in Jacksonville. Of about one hundred oranges which had 
come up from seed planted by Judge Hayden in December, 1876, seven 
had a perfect flower at the top, in the following April, and when they 
were only an inch and a half high. These remarkable instances of pre- 
mature blossoming are, I think, worthy of being recorded. — HENRY 
GILLMAN, Waldo, Florida. 
PLANTS or BRAZIL AND Germany. — Fritz Müller gives in Flora, 
an interesting account of a recent journey to the highlands of his Prov- 
“ince, St. Catharina, and the head waters of the river Uruguay. He found 
many plants which reminded him, by their facies, of the plants of Ger- 
many. , The violets, especially, were very near those of Germany. He 
observes that the minuter flowers of a white violet are not only cleisto- 
gamic, but are developed under the soil. It may be remembered that 
some of our Eastern species, notably V. sagittata, have late inconspicu- 
ous flowers which are very fertile. So far as we are aware, these late 
flowers of our violets are above and not under ground. Müller had not 
noticed in the lowlands any seeds or fruits which bury themselves in the 
ground, but on the higher plain he observed many which have marked 
hygroscopic properties by which they can bore their way into the soil. 
CELTIS OCCIDENTALIS. — A very old specimen of this tree is grow- 
ing in an exposed situation close to the shore near the Squantum Beach 
Hotel in the town of Quincy, Mass. Its size is worthy of record. At 
the ground it has a circumference of eleven feet and four inches, and at 
five feet from the ground, just where its short stem is the smallest, it 
. girts seven feet. A still finer specimen stands in the city of Lowell, 
and this at four feet from the ground girts seven feet six inches. This 
is the tree of which a photograph appears in Emerson’s Trees and 
Shrubs of Massachusetts, second edition, where it is called Celtis eras- 
sifolia, although in foliage and fruit it is identical with the form of ©: 
occidentalis common in the Eastern States. 
BoranicaL Papers IN Recent Perroprcars. — Bulletin of the 
Torrey Botanical Club. May and June. Notes on the Botanical Ge- 
ography of Syria. (An interesting _— of the seven botanical re- 
gions into which Syria is divided, namely: (1.) The dunes, or hills of 
drifting sand. (2.) The littoral ie ee The median mountain Te- 
gion. (4.) High Lebanonand Hermon. (5.) The high lake-bed. A 
Valley of the Jordan and the Dead Sea. (7.) The desert.) Mr. M 
sends notes of Suffolk County notes. C. F. Austin, New Hepatice. 
Botanical Gazette. Professor Porter gives in the July number an in- 
teresting account of some variations in mandrake, or may apple, P odo- 
— peltatum, and Mr. Shriver has a few notes on Nepeta and 
