THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
transcendent beauty. Next to seeing the plants them- 
selves, and every one who gets a chance should do so, the 
best thing is to consult the elegant plates in Bateman, 
Hooker, and some other of the great writers on orchids. 
The bromeliads or plants of the pine-apple family are 
only second in beauty to the orchids. Our sole American 
representative, except in Florida and the Gulf States, is 
the so-called "long" or "Spanish moss," Tillandsia 
usneoides. This is a good instance ot an epiphyte— but 
not a representative of the beauty of its really fine family. 
According to Hooker, in the Himalayas certain rhodo- 
dendrons assume an epiphytic habit. This shows that 
the trick is due more to environment and circumstance 
than to any degree of relationship. 
Brown Cmvershy, Providence, R. I. 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE TUMBLEWEEDS. 
BY WALTER ALBION SQUIRES, 
■p OR the early settlers of our prairie states, the name 
J- "tumbleweed" will need no explanation. During 
the years when the prairies were being settled and brought 
under cultivation these weeds formed one of the charac- 
teristic features of the plains. One of my earliest recollec- 
tions is that of standing at a window watching the 
tumbleweeds as the strongnorth winds, sweeping overthe 
brown grass as only a prairie wind can blow, drove them 
along the distant stretches of the prairies. In those days 
there were few obstacles to obstruct their course, and as 
soon as the strong autumnal winds began to blow, collect- 
ing in unnumbered thousands from miles and miles of 
newly broken sod, they began their rolling, tumbling 
flight. 
The tumbleweeds {Amarantus albus and A. hlitoides) 
are doubtless indigenous to our Western States, and as 
introduced weeds they are probably to be found in everv 
State of the Union, but they are nowhere so abundant as 
they once were and in many of the Prairie States where 
they were once the predominant w eed they have sunk to a 
