In wood and copse before the close of January, we may note the sylvan precursor of the green splendor of the later spring—the leafing honeysuckle, the earliest harbinger of sylvan verdure in the days to come. The little leaves have not yet revealed their size and form, and without close examination the light-brown, spiry twigs would appear to wear only their normal wintry aspect. But if we look narrowly at them we shall note the tiny spots of green at the stem knots, where the minute leaves are struggling to emerge from the bud cases. Earliest in leaf among the shrubs and trees of the hedgerow and forest, the woodbine is the latest in flower—spreading, even late in autumn, its sweet fragrance through thicket, copse and dell.
Childhood is the sleep of reason.—Rousseau.
[BOTANICAL NOTES.]
By Prof. J. H. MONTGOMERY.
The numberless uses for india-rubber in this century has made it an indispensable article of commerce and manufacture, consequently its production has become a great industry. Whether the known forests will continue to supply the demand for any considerable time is a practical question. Right here comes the intelligence, that the attention of the government in India has been called to a new source of this useful gum. This new plant which yields large quantities of pure caoutchouc is a native of Cochin China, and is common in Southern India. It belongs to the dog-bane family (the same family that yields strychnine), and is called Prameria Glandalifera. In lower China its liquid juice is used for medicine by the Anamites and Cambodians, and it also appears among the drugs of China.