278 
SPANISH-TOWK. 
come, that the leaves, of what I will call the foliage 
year, as distinguished from the alternate flower and 
seed year, become soon detached and fall, particularly 
if the season has been such as to thicken the juices 
by rapid exhaustion. The frail-bound vegetation 
withering or not adhering firmly in such a season, 
would be shaken ofi* in a shower of leaves under any 
one of those fitful tornadoes, that sweep by so often 
and so gustily after the sun has a second time reached 
the zenith of our island, and is hastening with its 
train of storm-clouds to recross the equator and to 
enter the southern hemisphere. 
It frequently happens that one half of a Silk- 
Cotton tree, or some particular cluster of stems and 
branches, has an alternation of leaves and fiowers 
in a different sequence of years from other parts of 
the tree. This deviation from what we have laid 
down as the economy of the whole tree is very in- 
telligible as a new condition of parts of the tree. 
It must have been seen that in the long run an 
Eriodendron or Ceiba, in distributing its sap in 
streams and lines from the main roots to the main 
stems, must change from an united to a divided 
economy of vegetation : — that instead of regulating 
its functions as one tree, it would set up an order 
as a bundle of trees clustered together in one column. 
Now it happens from some factitious circumstance, 
that one side of the tree, or one set of branches, have 
suffered some interruption, or have been forced into 
some acceleration of function as great evaporating 
organs. This may have been a diminished growing 
property in the terminal twigs, or an increased nu- 
