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This Prince of Vegetation is a native of South America. "It is short-stemmed and procumbent, but has a magnificent crown of light green ostrich-feather-like leaves, which rise from thirty to forty feet high." The fruit is as big as a man's head. Two or three millions of the nuts are imported by us every year, and applied to all the purposes of use and ornament for which real ivory is available.
A distinct and beautiful plant, of dwarf, creeping habit, forming a tuft of short branchlets springing from the main procumbent stems, none of which exceed 6 in. in length by ¾ in. in thickness. They are almost round when old, the younger ones being slightly angled, and bearing, along the ridges, little tubercles, crowned with short spines.
It often originates spontaneously between the common purple lucerne or alfalfa and its wild ally with yellow flowers and procumbent stems, the Medicago falcata. This hybrid is cultivated in some parts of Germany on a large scale, as it is more productive than the ordinary lucerne. It always comes true from seed and may be seen in a wild state in parks and on lawns.
The genus comprises a few species of South American annual or short-lived perennial, herbaceous, rank-smelling plants in which the many branches are spreading, procumbent, or feebly ascendent and commonly 2 to 6 feet in length, though under some conditions, particularly in the South and in California, they grow much longer.
There is a Species of bryor which is common in this neighbourhood of a green colour which grows most abundant in the rich dry lands near the water courses, but is also found in Small quantities in the piney lands at a distance from the water Courses in the former Situations the Stem is frequently the Size of a mans finger and rise perpendicularly to the hight of 4 or 5 feet when it decends in an arch and becoms procumbent or rests on Some neighbouring plant or Srubs; it is Simple unbranched and celindric; in the latter Situation it is much Smaller, and usially procumbent. the Stem is armed with Sharp and hooked bryors. the leaf is peteolate, ternate and resembles in Shape and appearance that of the purple Raspberry common to the atlantic States.
The procumbent, branched, slender, woody stems, which seldom reach 12 inches, bear oblong, triangular, tapering leaves from 1/4 to 1/2 inch long, green above and gray beneath. In the axils of the upper leaves are little pink or lilac flowers, which form whorls and loose, leafy spikes.
There are two species of ever green shrubs which I first met with at the grand rappids of the Columbia and which I have since found in this neighbourhood also; they grow in rich dry ground not far usually from some watercourse. the roots of both species are creeping and celindric. the stem of the 1st is from a foot to 18 inches high and as large as a goosqull; it is simple unbranced and erect. it's leaves are cauline, compound and spreading. the leafets are jointed and oppositely pinnate, 3 pare & terminating in one, sessile, widest at the base and tapering to an accuminated point, an inch and a quarter the greatest width, and 3 inches & a 1/4 in length. each point of their crenate margins armed with a subulate thorn or spine and are from 13 to 17 in number. they are also veined, glossy, carinated and wrinkled; their points obliquely pointing towards the extremity of the common footstalk. The stem of the 2nd is procumbent abot the size of the former, jointed and unbranched. it's leaves are cauline, compound and oppositely pinnate; the rib from 14 to 16 inches long celindric and smooth. the leafets 21/2 inches long and 1 inch wide. greatest width 1/2 inch from their base, to which they are regularly rounded, and from the same point tapering to an accute apex, wich is mostly, but not invariably tirminated with a small subulate thorn. they are jointed and oppositely pinnate, consisting of 6 pare and terminating in one, sessile serrate, or like the teeth of a whipsaw, each point terminating in a small subulate spine, being from 25 to 27 in number; veined, smooth, plane and of a deep green, their points tending obliquely towards the extremity of the rib or common footstalk.
Others were bringing water from the spring below, some gathering sprigs of fragrant Artemisia and other shrubs to form couches some lopping branches of larger trees to screen them from nocturnal radiation; their only protection from the dew being such branches stuck in the ground, and slanting over their procumbent forms.
This has rather inconspicuous flowers, and is of greatest value for the autumnal foliage tints. Other species that might be included are V. canadense, V. stamineum, V. frondosum, and V. ligustrifolium. The various species of Vaccinium are of dwarf or procumbent growth, and only suitable for planting in beds, or on rockwork, where they will not be lost sight of.
Meanwhile the sawyer, exhilarated beyond measure in his drunken mind at having raised a real good promising row, having turned on his back, lay procumbent upon the twain, and kicking everything soft or human he came across with his heels, struck up "The Bay of Biscay, Oh," until he was dragged forth by two of his friends; and, being in a state of wild excitement, ready to fight the world, hit his own mate a violent blow in the eye, and was only quieted by receiving a sound thrashing, and being placed in a sitting posture in the verandah of the public house, from which he saw Doctor Mulhaus come forth from the surgeon's with rumpled feathers, but triumphant.
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