/ 
NOTES. [103] 
cold or frost than Gossypium. We rind that the plant has been received by Dr. 
Vasey, botanist of the Department of Agriculture, from several parties in Florida, 
with inquiries as to the value of the fiber. Ureva lobata was, until very recently, not 
known to occur in the United States. It is common on dry hill pastures almost 
every where in the West Indies and southward to Guiana and Brazil, and is also re- 
ported from Western Africa, East Indies, Chiua, and some of the Pacific islands. 
It seems to thrive very well in Florida, and is likely to spread to other adjacent 
States. 
"The Anomia ero*a, the eggs and young larv;e of which were not uncommon on the 
1 i \ es of the Urena, may be distinguished from Aletia by the paler, more trauslucent 
character of both egg and larva, and by the first pair of prologs being quite obsolete, 
in which character it resembles the Atwmis txacta [taNUM] that affects cotton in Texas. 
Aletia larva? that had been fed on cotton, when placed upon the Urena, retused to feed 
upon it, and finally perished. 
"We recently took occasion to carefully examine the Malvaceous plants in the 
herbarium of the Department of Agriculture with some quite interesting results, al- 
though a herbarium is naturally the least favorable place one can choose for an ento- 
mological investigation of this character, as plants that are least injured by insects 
are most apt to be collected, and the mode of preserving the plants still further 
reduces the chances of linding traces of Aletia. because only one side of the leaf is 
available for examination. How small this chance is may he illustrated by the fact 
that on the specimens of Gossypium in the herbarium no Aletia eggs or egg-shells 
could bo discovered, and that only one specimen showed any traco of being injured 
by any insect whatever. Nevertheless a number of eggs or fragments of snch — some 
of them from their structure very closely related to Aletia — were found on the follow- 
ing plants: Malvaatrum spicatum, from Florida and Nicaragua; I'rrna ribesia (which 
is considered a form of U. lobata), from Southern Florida; Pavonia ti/jyhalcoides, from 
Cuba; Sida glomcrata, from Cuba. 
"One object of this examination was t<» discover, if possible, Ihc part icular Malva- 
ceous plant upon which Aletia feeds in the States north of the cotton belt, but this 
proved to bean almost complete failure, because the herbarium contained only six 
specimens of such plants from the more northern States, not counting slkteen speci- 
mens cultivated in the agricultural grounds at Washington. However, on a specimen 
of Sida spinosa, from York County, Pennsylvania, an egg was found which has every 
appearance of that of Aletia. 
"We would earnestly call upon entomologists who may read these pages to aid us 
in obtaining evidence of the food plant of the insect in the more northern States by 
an examination of the plants indicated by an asterisk in the following list, as it is 
npon such that the insect will probably be found at some future time, but, only late 
in the season : 
LOCALITIES FOR MALVACEOUS PLANTS FROM GRAY'S FLORA. 
J Warn officinalis L. — Salt marshes coast of New England and New York. {'Sat. from 
Eu.) 
Maha rotundifolia L. — Waysides and cultivated grounds, common. (Nat. from Eu.) 
sylvestris L. — Waysides. (Adv. from Eu.) 
mo8chata L. — Has escaped from gardens to waysides. (Adv. from Eu.) 
alcca L. — Has escaped from gardens in Chester County, Pennsylvania. (Adv. 
from Eu.) 
CaUirrhoe triangulata Gray. — Dry prairies, Wisconsin, Illinois and southward. 
alco?oides Gray. — Barren oak lands, Southern Kentucky and Tennessee. 
Xapera dioica L. — Limestone valleys, Pennsylvania and southward to the valley of 
Virginia, west to Ohio and Illinois, rare. 
* Malvastrum an gust urn Gray. — Rock Island in the Mississippi, Hlinois. 
coccineum Gray. — Abounds on the plains from Iowa and Minnesota west- 
ward. 
