THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
and medium lengths of styles and stamens. Darwin was 
es|>€cially interested in tliein. Among the writer's valued 
possessions is an autograph letter from Darwin to Asa Gray, 
asking for information on the subject. The water hyacinth 
(Piaropiis crassipes) is also a member of the Pontederiaceae. 
At the North it is often cultivated for its handsome flowers, 
hit in the bayous and siug^sh streams of the South it has 
become something- of a pest, growing so luxuriantly as to 
entirely cover the water. It is said, however, that cattle are 
fond, of the succulent leaves, and what was once a pest may 
in time come to be a vahied crop. 
A VEGETABLE TRAMP. 
F all the plants I have known, there seems to be none 
^"'^ so deserving of the name of tramp as the common 
mullein. Like its human prototype, it is a wanderer in many 
climes and wamis itself on the sunny side of railway embank- 
ments from Maine to California. It is a dweller by the 
dusty roadside and in the rocky pasture. An outcast of the 
vegetable w'orld, at home in any spot, and yet forever home- 
less, it dwells beside the garbage heap and sends up its tall 
spikes amid the tin cans and dismantled bed-springs of every 
dumping ground throughout the land. It seems to cling 
especially to the outskirts of large cities, though it is also 
found far within the wilderness. In the West I have often 
seen it standing in autumn and winter, tattered, ragged 
and brown, on the rocky bars of rivers, in the vicinity of 
towns. These river bars are also favorite gathering places 
for other wanderers — human derelicts, the abandoned of 
mankind. Here, crouched upon the sand, their only habi- 
tation the sheltering willows, and with the rounded pebbles 
