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Updated: June 7, 2025
There is a species of goosberry which grows very common about here in open situations among the rocks on the sides of the clifts. they are now ripe of a pale red colour, about the size of a common goosberry. and like it is an ovate pericarp of soft pulp invelloping a number of smal whitish coloured seeds; the pulp is a yelloish slimy muselaginous substance of a sweetish and pinelike tast, not agreeable to me. the surface of the berry is covered with a glutinous adhesive matter, and the frut altho ripe retains it's withered corollar. this shrub seldom rises more than two feet high and is much branched, the leaves resemble those of the common goosberry only not so large; it has no thorns. the berry is supported by seperate peduncles or footstalks of half an inch in length. immence quantities of small grasshoppers of a brown colour in the plains, they no doubt contribute much to keep the grass as low as we find it which is not generally more than three inches, the grass is a narrow leaf, soft, and affords a fine pasture for the Buffaloe.
Other peduncles, so young as to be only three-tenths of an inch in length, became curved when rubbed. On the other hand, peduncles above 1.5 inch in length required to be rubbed two or three times, and then became only just perceptibly bowed.
By the combined movements of the internodes and peduncles, one of the two short hooked tendrils, sooner or later, catches hold of some twig or branch, and then it curls round and securely grasps it. These tendrils are, however, but slightly sensitive; for by rubbing their under surface only a slight movement is slowly produced.
There is a speceis of cherry which grows in this neighbourhood in sitations like the Choke cherry or near the little rivulets and wartercouses. it seldom grows in clumps or from the same cluster of roots as the choke cherry dose. the stem is simple branching reather diffuse stem the cortex is of a redish dark brown and reather smooth. the leaf is of the ordinary dexture and colour of those of most cherries, it is petiolate; a long oval 11/4 inhes in length and 1/2 an inch in width, obtuse, margin so finely serrate that it is scarcely perseptable & smooth. the peduncle is common 1 inch in length, branch proceeding from the extremities as well as the sides of the branches, celindric gradually tapering; the secondary peduncles are about 1/2 an inch in length scattered tho proceeding more from the extremity of the common peduncle and are each furnished with a small bracted. the parts of fructification are much like those discribed of the choke cherry except that the petals are reather longer as is the calix reather deeper. the cherry appears to be half grown, the stone is begining to be hard and is in shape somewhat like that of the plumb; it appears that when ripe it would be as large as the Kentish cherry, which indeed the growth of the bush somewhat resembles; it rises about 6 or 8 feet high
When the latter itself bears a few flowers, as we know sometimes is the case, and still retains the power of clasping a support, we see an early condition of all those tendrils which have been formed by the modification of flower- peduncles.
Sometimes the flower-stems or peduncles are branched, bearing two or three flowers, and in that case there may be a small green leaf or bract where the fork arises. The placing of the petals in the bud at the epoch of expansion may differ in two flowers on the same tree.
Loops of thread suspended on the peduncles produced no effect; loops of string, however, weighing 0.82 and 1.64 of a grain sometimes caused a slight curvature; but they were never closely clasped, as were the far lighter loops of thread by the petioles.
To lengthen and bend the peduncle or flower-slalk, that the flower might hang downwards. 3d. To reflect the petals. 4th. To erect these peduncles when the germ was fecundated. Turmeric. One male and one female inhabit this flower; but there are besides four imperfect males, or filaments without anthers upon them, called by Linneus eunuchs.
In Zanonia Indica, which belongs to a different tribe of the family, the forked tendrils and the internodes revolve in periods between 2 hrs. 8 m. and 3 hrs. 35 m., moving against the sun. VITACEAE. In this family and in the two following, namely, the Sapindaceae and Passifloraceae, the tendrils are modified flower- peduncles; and are therefore axial in their nature.
There is also found in this neighbourhood an evergreen shrub which I take to be another variety of the Shallun and that discribed under that name in mistake on the 26th of January. this shrub rises to the hight of from four to five feet, the stem simple branching, defuse and much branched. the bark is of a redish dark brown, that of the mane stein is somewhat rough while that of the boughs is smooth. the leaves are petiolate the petiole 1/40 of an inch long; oblong, obtuse at the apex and accute angular at the insertion of the petiole; 3/4 of an inch in length and Ysths in width; convex, somewhat revolute, serrate, smoth and of a paler green than the evergreens usually are; they are also opposite and ascending. the fruit is a small deep perple berry like the common huckleberry of a pleasent flavor. they are seperately scattered & attatched to the small boughs by short peduncles.. the natives eat this berry when ripe but seldom collect it in such quantities as to dry it for winter uce.
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