There is no familiar or common name for this interesting plant. The generic name is from the Greek, meaning "thick stamen." The plant belongs to the spurgeworts (Euphorbiacae), where also the better known ricinus, croton, box-wood (Buxus sempervirens), etc.,are placed.

Quite a little may be said in favor of the pachysandra for certain situations, while it is curious in that its male and female flowers are somewhat peculiarly placed, as well as odd in themselves. They are borne in long, naked spikes (the males above), and the four thick, white, prominent stamens answer very well in the place of petals, as one may judge from our engraving, which is drawn from nature, the leaves reduced in size two-thirds and the spike one-half. These spikes appear in earliest spring and in considerable numbers, overtopped by the leaves, which are from six to nine inches tall and narrowed at the base to slender petioles. The plant spreads quite rapidly by creeping root-stalks, and is one of the few evergreens that enjoy almost complete shade. It will flourish equally under bushes and trees, and even in the dense shade of woods, retaining its foliage freshly green during the entire winter.

The flowers as can be seen, have no petals. The male flowers consist merely of fleshly white sta-mens and a calyx. The three lower ones are the females, those above the males. The females consist of three styles, recurved and stigmatic down the entire inside and sub-tended by several bracts. The male flowers have an agreeable, the female a somewhat unpleasant odor. Pachy-sandra procumbens is found wild in Virginia and Tennessee, southward. E. S. C.