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CALCEOLARIA TETRAQONA. 
63 
brown coal, which are found in each division of the tertiary period, contain, among the earliest land 
cryptogamia, some palms, a great number of coniferse with well-marked annual rings, and arborescent 
forms (not coniferous) of a more or less tropical character. The middle tertiary period is marked by 
the re-establishment, in full numbers, of the families of palms and cycade®; and finally, the most 
recent shows great similarity to our present vegetation, exhibiting suddenly and abundantly various 
pines and firs, cupulifer®, maples, and poplars. The dicotyledonous stems in lignite are occasionally 
characterized by colossal size and great age. In a trunk found near Bonn, Noggerath counted 792 
annual rings. In the turf bogs of the Somme, at Yseux, near Abbeville, a trunk of an oak tree has 
been found above fourteen feet in diameter, which is an extraordinary thickness for the extra-tropical 
parts of the old continent.— Humboldt's Cosmos. 
The Spanish Dagger Plant, Yucca aloifolia , a plant very commonly used in Jamaica for making 
fences, yields a fine paper-looking substance, which is got by breaking the lower part of the leaf along 
the midrib, then pulling each half gently from the cuticle which covers the upper surface. It is most 
easily got from the young leaves, as in them only it separates freely. It can also be got equally well 
from the young leaves of the Yucca gloriosa. It is an excellent article for making artificial flowers, 
as it takes on colours freely. 
In Junghuhn’s “ Travels in Java,” we find an account of the remarkable forests completely cover¬ 
ing an ancient volcanic mountain (Manella-wanzie), over 9000 feet high. The woods near the summit 
have a very peculiar character. One of the most frequent and conspicuous trees is Thibaudia vulgaris , 
the trunks of which here attain enormous thickness, some as much as ten, others eight, most above six 
feet in circumference. Affected by the exposure of the elevation, they are gnarled, curved, and abun¬ 
dantly branched at a height of three to six feet from the ground, their branches being very much con¬ 
torted, and spreading widely. Thibaudia rosea and Gaultheria leucocarpa (fifteen feet high), Photinia 
integrifolia (twenty-five to thirty feet high), Gnaphalium javanicum, and Vireya retusa, are other cha¬ 
racteristic plants ; but Leptosper mum javanicum, with its white-spotted dome of leaves spreading over 
the Vireya , or a Gnaphalium, and Hedera squarrosa, creeping far and wide among the trunks and branches 
of the other trees, are particularly striking. Scarcely a tree is found of which the trunk is not short 
and divided low down into numerous gnarled, curling, and most irregular branches. The tree-fern 
Cyathea oligocarpa , which rises fifteen or twenty feet high, straight as a dart, and bearing its 
radiating crown of fronds at the summit, becomes thereby the more conspicuous. Herbaceous ferns 
are abundant, as also other Cryptogams, such as fungi. But the most curious of this tribe are the 
mosses ( Hypna , Leshece , &c.), which clothe the trunks and main branches of the trees with cushions 
a foot and more in thickness, exaggerating the monstrous appearance already given by the irregular, 
twisted mode of growth. They also cover the damp ground to such an extent, that the flowers of the 
rhizanth, Balanophora elongata , parasitical in the roots here, can scarcely cut their way through. 
While the mosses clothe the trunks and main branches with their deep green cushions, heightening 
the gloom of the forest, the smaller branches and twigs are overgrown with whitish grey lichens 
( Usnece), fluttering in the wind, and completing the character of such an ancient forest, hoary with 
time.—A. H. 
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CALCEOLARIA TETRAGONA. 
T^OSSESSING considerable beauty in itself, this shrubby species of Slipperwort promises to afford 
& materials which may effect that improvement in the worn-out garden Calceolarias which the 
Cape species of Pelargonium are beginning to bring about in the case of the enfeebled florists’ breed 
of this latter popular flower. If its properties can at all be brought to bear upon the domesticated 
Slipperwort, w r e may yet hope to see some of their acquired beauty of flower, united with a vigorous 
constitution and good habit of growth. 
The species has been lately introduced from Peru by Messrs. Yeitch of Exeter, and was produced 
by them at the London exhibitions during the past summer. It forms a true shrub with a compact 
