Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/796

774 (Casuarina equisetifolia), so called from the likeness of its long, delicate branches to the hair of the cassowary, and equisetifolia, because its stems and leaves are like our common weed equisetum, or horsetail. This tree is a native of the East, and is introduced now



through all tropical countries. The button tree (Thespesia populnea) is thus called from its buttonlike fruit, and is common about the town.

The vegetation was new and curious to our Northern eyes, each step revealing plants and trees hitherto unknown. How to know them was a problem, because we were interested in these beautiful surroundings, but could find no one who could give us reliable information. A few plants that were familiar to us in greenhouses in the North grow in Nassau as common garden plants. Some that we recognized were the poinsettia; oleanders, growing to the height of twenty-five feet, with flowers varying from white to pink and deep crimson; hibiscus, with hundreds of blossoms on a single shrub;