There is a very curious tree quite common in this vicinity which I have never seen noticed, or if I have seen it, it was so obscured by unintelligible name and description that I did not recognize it. This tree is known among us simple rustics as "Gopher-root." This quite expressive but not very elegant name enables us in our innocence to understand what we are talking about, though really it is not a root at all, but the wide spreading branches of an underground tree.

This tree is practically without any trunk, it being so short that it does not reach to the surface of the ground. The branches run as nearly horizontal as the formation of the surface of the ground will permit, and usually from 2 to 6 inches below it. These underground branches send out side branches and forks like other trees, but all maintain their subterranean position. Some of these trees have a total spread of branches of 80 to 100 feet. The leaves and blossoms are borne on slender annual or biennial twigs that are thrown up thickly from the younger branches and grow to a height of 6 to 10 inches. Enclosed I send one of the largest with leaves and blossoms.

It seems a pity that such a curious and worthless tree should lead a life of obscurity among rustics with no name but "Gopher-root;" so if it has not already a scientific name I would suggest that it be called Gopherrootum Procumbens Sub-terraneum Floridiana Adamsii. Such a name as that would at once place the lowly tree on a high scientific plane and all indefiniteness of nomenclature be removed. By the use of such a name very lew people would ever learn to speak it, and thus in the limited circle of scientists there would be no confusion of names. Then another thing occurs to me. When one of us poor plow joggers is plowing and gets inextricably entangled in these underground branches (from 1/2 to 2 1/2 inches in diameter) there is nothing in our simple vocabulary that will give full or even approximate expression to our thoughts. When thus entangled, with a broken harness, and angry mule and a thunder shower at hand, what a relief it would be to pronounce that name with a ferocious accent on the antepenult! What effect the use of such language would have on the mule is of no importance, for mules are accustomed to a good deal of rough talk in plain English, and if that does not hurt them we need not fear damage from feebler tongues.

Tangerine, Orange Co., Fla., June 19, 1886.

[Unfortunately this must not be an "Adamsii," for Michaux is ahead with a prior name - Chryso-balanus oblongifolius - Linnaaus having adopted the generic name for the cocoa plum of the West Indies. The name is Greek - Chrysos, golden, and balanos, an acorn, or "plum".

We never knew as much about the plant as our correspondent's humorous letter discloses, and so give it in full with his inquiry for its name. Wood in his "Class Book " tells us that " it grows in the pine barrens of Georgia, Alabama and Florida, and is a shrub with a slender prostrate stem or woody rhizome, sending up short branches of 8 or 12 inches," and this is about all the account that we know of in any published work.

The West Indian one is known as Chrysoba-lanus Icaco, and is called the cocoa plum. This is said to grow also in the Everglades, and to make there a tree with dense, glossy, deep foliage, with the fruit as large as a plum but varying in color from milky white (cocoanut-flesh color) to red and black. The fruit of this species is said to be quite pleasant eating, but we know of no account of the fruit of this dwarf kind. - Ed. G. M].