66 The West American Scientist. 



ty feet in height, fruit blood- red or saffron, with a sweet granular 

 pulp. In the south of Europe it is mostly served up in the 

 dried state, as a choice sweetmeat of the winter season, known 

 as jujube. The Turks plant these with other trees in front of 

 their coffee houses that they may enjoy shade, shelter and fruit 

 together, 



East Indian jujube tree (Z. jujube). — Also a small tree 

 of sixteen or twenty feet, cultivated in China and Cochin-China, 

 bears fruit of the size of a large cherry, smooth and yellow when 

 ripe. There is however a variety oi '.his, or perhaps another 

 species, that produces an excellent fruit of oblong form, of the 

 size of a hen's egg, known by the name oi Nankellekool. 



Pear-wood jujube (Z. xylopyrus). — This tree abounds 

 everywhere in the forests of Coromandel. Cattle eat the leaves, 

 young twigs and fruit; the kernel, of which, the natives are very 

 fond, has the fine flavor of filberts. The timber of the largest 

 trees is also highly esteemed, is of yellow orange color, very 

 hard and durable, and withal very light. Most timbers combin- 

 ing such rare qualities for many uses proved too heavy. 



A kindred shrub (Paliurus), and one of this genus, the Christ 

 Thorn (Z, Spina-Christi), are both equally common in Judea, 

 The former cap, or crown- fruited; the latter double-thorned with 

 fruit like a sloe. Rival authors refer to the plausible pliability of 

 their exceeding flexible twigs, being readily wrought into any 

 form, as having been the one put upon the head of our Savior. 



Lote trees may be multiplied by cuttings from the roots or ripe 

 twigs, with care, from layers and root slips, suckers and seeds. 

 These budded or grafted from a iew choice foreign parent trees 

 would soon yield a progeny of many millions, adding to the 

 wealth of the Pacific, and an annual income to California alike 

 counted by unnumbered millions. 



Our pen picture is from a specimen contributed by Dr. C. C. 

 Parry, whose name it bears, and is furnished through the liberality 

 of the California Academy of Science. Albert Kellogg. 



FRITILLARIAS. 



(From the Pacific Rural Press xxxviii, 418.) 



These comprise seven or eight Californian species, all very sim- 

 ilar in stalk and leaf and shape of flower, but in great variety of 

 color and mottling, and with curious forms of bulbs. Those 

 who are familiar with lilies know that there are some bulbs which 

 vie with the blossoms in beauty. The Fritillarias, too, have some 

 beautiful bulb forms. One type is a round flattened disk, clean, 

 shiny and white, beaded and covered with little rice-like, ivory 

 white bulblets, which fall off at the touch. This is the bulb of F. 

 recurva and F. lanceolata. F. biflora and F. Jiliacea have an- 

 other form, in which the bulb is formed of a few, rounded clear 

 white scales, easily falling apart, and each section propagating 

 the plant, as do the little grain like bulblets of the others. 



