﻿6 SEEDS AND PLANTS IMPORTED. 



flesh, resembling a cooked sweet potato, and with a hardiness which 

 presumably will enable it to be grown in California and Florida; 

 a South American walnut {Juglans sp., No. 41334), of distinct 

 value to plant breeders, the bark of which is used for dyeing 

 wool the color of the famous vicuna ponchos; and a remarkable 

 species of the papaya (No. 41339), which produces fruits that will 

 keep for two weeks or more after they are ripe and which are as 

 deliciously fragrant as a well-ripened muskmelon and of excellent 

 flavor but tough texture. Although the quinoa (Chenop odium 

 quinoa, No. 41340) has often been introduced into America and has 

 nowhere yet found a home, it is important to get an opinion regard- 

 ing this plant from a keen observer and thoroughly trained agri- 

 cultural explorer. Mr. Cook reports that previous to the introduc- 

 tion of wheat and barley this cultivated pigweed was one of the two 

 most widely grown crops of the remarkable Inca civilization, that it 

 is pronounced by a Scotchman resident there to-day as being better 

 than oatmeal for a breakfast food, and that it appears ver}' vigor- 

 ous and productive and may possibly be gathered and thrashed by 

 machinery. 



Among the introductions sent in by correspondents or collected by 

 travelers, there are several unusual things covered by this inventory. 

 To Rev. George Campbell, the American missionary who has sent in 

 so many interesting plants from South China, we are indebted for a 

 most remarkable dwarf peach (No. 41395), which is handled as a 

 pot-grown tree in China and which he says comes true to seed. He 

 reports that one small tree 15 inches high with a stem no larger than 

 a lead pencil ripened five good-sized edible clingstone peaches. The 

 behavior out of doors at Chico of a number of seedlings of this peach 

 suggests the possibility of a dwarf race of peach trees of value as 

 fruit producers and for plant breeding. Mr. Carlos Werckle, of 

 Costa Rica, sends seeds of the sansapote (Licania platypus, No. 

 41393), the most beautiful forest tree in Costa Rica, which grows to 

 gigantic size, bears an edible fruit, and produces timber nearly as 

 good as the Cedrela timber of Cuba. Mr. A. Rolloff , director of the 

 Tiflis Botanic Garden, who has sent so many new hardy plants from 

 the Caucasus, presents us with seeds of the beautiful sulphur-yellow 

 peony (No. 41476), recently discovered near Lagodekhi in eastern 

 central Caucasus b}^ Mlokosewitsch, for whom it was named. Car an- 

 garia arborescens has become almost a necessary hedge and shelter- 

 belt plant on the Canadian Great Plains, and it is coming to be bet- 

 ter appreciated in our own Northwest. A beautiful, striking, pros- 

 trate form (No. 41480) to which Mr. Norman M. Ross, of Indian 

 Head, directed attention last year, and which he has since sent us, 



