346 



PA CHYSA NDRA PR O CUMBENS. 



tractive site now must pay roundly for it in good 

 money. It is to be desired that those who now hold 

 possession of such things will keep them for im- 

 provement in the true sense of the word : not by 



great outlay of money, but by preservation and ju- 

 dicious landscape work, which will in time bring 

 better returns than shares and stocks, and always 

 be better for the world at large. 



PACHYSANDRA PROCUMBENS. 



There is no familiar or common name for this in- 

 teresting plant. The generic name is from the 

 Greek, meaning "thick stamen." The plant be- 

 longs to the spurgeworts (Euphorbiacse), where also 

 the better known ricinus, croton, box-wood {Buxus 

 senipe7-virens), 

 etc., are placed. 



Quite a little 

 may be said in 

 favor of the 

 pachy s a n d r a 

 for certain situ- 

 ations, while it 

 is curious in 

 that its male 

 and female 

 flowers are 

 somewhat pe- 

 culiarly placed, 

 as well as odd 

 in themselves. 

 They are borne 

 in long, naked 

 spikes (the 

 males above), 

 and the four 

 thick, white, 

 prominent sta- 

 mens answer 

 very well in the 

 place of petals, 

 as one may 

 judge from our 

 engraving, which is drawn from nature, the leaves 

 reduced in size two-thirds and the spike one-half. 

 These spikes appear in earliest spring and in con- 

 siderable numbers, overtopped by the leaves, which 



PaCHYSANDRA PROCUMBENS. FlOWERS NATURAL SIZE; LEAVES \i NATURAL SIZE 



are from six to nine inches tall and narrowed at the 

 base to slender petioles. The plant spreads quite 

 rapidly by creeping root-stalks, and is one of the 

 few evergreens that enjoy almost complete shade. 

 It will flourish equally under bushes and trees, and 



even in the 

 dense shade of 

 woods, retain- 

 ing its foliage 

 freshly green 

 during the en- 

 tire winter. 



The flowers 

 as can be seen, 

 have no petals. 

 The male flow- 

 ers consist 

 merely of flesh- 

 ly white sta- 

 m e n s and a 

 calyx. . The 

 three lower 

 ones are the 

 females, those 

 above the 

 males. The 

 females consist 

 of three styles, 

 recurved and 

 stigmatic down 

 the entire in- 

 side and sub- 

 tended by 

 several bracts. The male flowers have an agreeable, 

 the female a somewhat unpleasant odor. Pachy- 

 sandra prociwibens is found wild in Virginia and 

 Tennessee, southward. E. S. C. 



