4 



SEEDS AND PLANTS IMPORTED. 



it may be a satisfaction to that veteran plant lover of England to 

 feel that he has given to the dooryards of this country so lovely a 

 shrub. 



Pole Evans has sent some bulbs of the little South African gladi- 

 olus, which has bulbs the size of a pea {G. alatus^ No. 54304) and 

 ought to be interesting to the breeders of gladioli. 



Though the seed failed to grow and it may be another year before 

 we get more of it, we can not refrain from calling the attention of 

 all tropical botanic gardens to the gorgeous ornamental plant, 

 whose meter-long scarlet sprays, composed of the enlarged sepals 

 of the inconspicuous flowers, splashed the landscape with scarlet 

 near the Rio Sucio on Gatun Lake last summer when P. H. Dorsett 

 and the writer were visiting the jungles of the Canal Zone. It is 

 difficult to pardon the botanist Klotzsch for attaching to so gorgeous 

 a plant the almost unpronounceable name of W arszeiciczia coccinea 

 (No. 54297). 



Although the opinion of the chemists seems to preclude the prob- 

 ability that Stevia rebaudiana (No. 53918), which at one time 

 alarmed the sugar planters by its reputed sweetness, will ever become 

 a commercial crop, the introduction and trial in our country of so 

 interesting a composite is surely warranted. 



The botanical determinations of seeds introduced have been made 

 and the nomenclature determined by H. C. Skeels, and the de- 

 scriptive and botanical notes have been arranged by G. P. Van 

 Eseltine, who has had general supervision of this inventory. Miss 

 Patty T. Newbold has assisted in the compilation of descriptive 

 notes. 



David Fairchild, 

 Agricultural Exflorer in Charge. 



Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction, 



Washington^ D. G,^ Decemher 12^ 1922. 



