DOMBEYA MOLLIS. (Sterculiaceae). This species, closely re- 
lated to our very beautiful Domprya or “Assonia” (Dombeya 
Wallichi), with its huge hanging pink flower clusters at Christmas- 
time, came to me from the botanical garden at Tananarive, Madagascar. 
The word “mollis” means “soft-hairy” but I have no description of the 
plant. The foliage is quite distinct from D. Wallichi, almost a blue- 
green color. 
DERRIS DALBERGIOIDES. (Papilionaceae). According to Mac- 
millan, this is a tall erect tree with fine feathery foliage. It loses its 
leaves for a brief period in February and March, “after which it bears 
at the ends of the branches masses of purplish-pink blossom, rendering 
the tree a striking object. The blossom, however, is soon over.” Derris 
comprises both trees and vines but the genus is so confused with 
Lonchocarpus, Pongamia, Piscidia, etc., that the layman is inevitably, 
hopelessly confused. There are other showy-flowered trees in the 
Derris group, for example D. hylobia of Peru with carmine flowers, 
but the trees are rare in the United States and chief attention centers 
on this genus as the source of rotenone, “one of the most potent 
insecticidal constituents of plants used by South American natives as 
fish poisons.” 
CASSIA RENIGERA. (Caesalpinieae). BuRMESE cassia. “The 
most beautiful of all Cassias,” writes Kathleen Gough in “A Garden 
Book for Malaya” and this opinion is shared by many. The flowers 
are a richer pink and more showy than the commoner C. nodosa. There 
is a mature tree at the Montgomery Palmetum in Coconut Grove, so 
spectacular in bloom that I have made two April visits there for 
the particular purpose of viewing that tree. I know of only two 
Cassias that I think are more magnificent than C. renigera. One of 
these is an unidentified pink-flowered seedling in the U. S. plant in- 
troduction garden at Coconut Grove which I saw fairly smothered in 
bloom a year ago. The other is the extraordinary group of crosses 
made by cross-pollenizing C. fistula and C. javanica. This has been 
done extensively in Honolulu and I have a color photograph of one 
of these hybrid trees that is startingly beautiful with flowers of many 
mixed colors all over the tree in greatest profusion. In Hawaii these 
- crosses are called “Rainbow Shower.” Some experimenters in Florida 
have done some of this cross-breeding and I have a young tree in my 
garden that represents one of these combinations, but what the flowers 
will be remains to be seen. (Do not confuse these cross-breeds with 
C. hybrida). Kuck & Tongg of Hawaii in their book: “The Tropical 
Garden,” say of these cross-breeds: “These trees are hybrids between 
the yellow and the pink and white showers and vary widely among 
themselves. The flowers are usually of a prevailing apricot tone al- 
though individual flowers on the same branch may differ considerably. 
Some of the seedling colors are beautiful and others are rather muddy. 
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