THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
85 
But here the mountains come down to the sea, and their 
steep slopes face south and southwest and there is never any 
frost. So we have the conditions mixed, and here we could 
reasonably expect to find some unusual and rare plants, and 
so it has proved, for we found one never before collected 
in the United States, though a known Lower California 
species — I 'erbesina- dessita. And there are a number of 
others rarely seen and all most interesting studies. We hati 
come to the place in our evolution as botanists where a new 
plant was an event. 
There was an insignificant bunch of pale leaves near 
the gfround that we passed by at first, because we saw no 
flowers with it, and there were so many, many flowers, so 
many kinds, so many colors, such lavish display everywhere, 
that how could we be attracted at first by a few lowly, rather 
yellow, and woni-looking leaves? But inevitably the day 
came when we brought in the plant and gave it careful 
study. The leaves were growing on a running stock about 
one and a half inches below ground; they were about the 
size and much the shape of violet leaves, which set us first 
to studying the violet family. There were growing from 
the tufts of 'leaves little buds, as we thought, just appear- 
ing and nearly sessile; a lens, however, revealed the fact 
that our buds were seed capsules, but we were not botan- 
ists enough to determine what they were. This mysterious 
method of bearing seed below ground was something new, 
and so we sent specimens of the plant to a local botanist, 
who had always helped us out of previous difficulties, and 
who is an authority on Southern California flora. He wrote 
back for more material, but owing to his having forgotten 
temporarily my name, I never got the two letters he sent 
and a third one came too late for that season. Meantime, 
we had gone to the beach again the last of June and found 
our little plant had disappeared. But digging in the place 
