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THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC AND
ECOLOGICAL BOTANY
Tie.
EDITED BY WILLARD N. CLUTE
Volume XIX
286582
JOLIET, ILL.
WILLARD N. CLUTE & CO.
1913
ENE
CONTENTS
ILLUSTRATED ARTICLES MARKED WITH A STAR (*).
raaumecia Our Native..........0..% Bessie L. Putnam
Penwiwies. Identityine im Winter. ..... W. M. Buswell *
PeretOOie WNC 60. ks oa kes Gs ee eo oe S. [. Anthon
ipormizime, Transient ....2.......- Dr. W. W. Batley
ills torplant, What-............... Willard N. Clute
litt prake, The Slender...) -....... Willard N. Clute
Ciltivation of the Iris; Phe..--..... Willard N. Clute
Cyompediums, Phe North American.:.............2:
MP oe ee Grace Greylock Niles *
iDayeiites: The 2.2.5. k. ae ae Willard N. Clute
Deedee: Clover <0. 0. cece cee ee S. I. Anthon *
RU
amelie inthe Elome of the .>.............-.407.
I er eae Charles Francis Saunders
Fern Flora of Michigan, Notes on the..Edwim D. Hull
Gandenm Plant, An Ornamental........ Willard N. Clute
(ovdiesssSinield Fern... .. 2.0... 0.5 Adella Prescott
ligtcee dine Cultivation of the.......... Willard N. Clute
Juglans Regia, Abnormal Fruits of..../. A. Nieuwland
Paperwand Labeling. 2.50... eee ee Willard N. Clute
Liles, IUAGS CIE) ieee eeetete eee aera Willard N. Clute
Wiljpeiine SUTPTISe. . 63... 6. ee Bs mee: S, 1. Anthon
Wioomun@ tb eM es. oo oe he oe v8 Adella Prescott
Moss, Gray or Spanish....... Georgia Torrey Drennan
Miateineitabitat: A Curtous.......... Willard N. Clute
Nametssus, Silorus ....'.....- Georgia Torrey Drennan
MenmAcalaindy mere Nameds © ata. 60... 60 oe koe ee
Pelli IN Gig av eas een ee oe Willard N. Clute
imelicrminiant. (er. 2 24.........:..Wilard N. Clute
memesteimmon GrandilOTrOusS =. 5.000. .3 2. ss 5 AH. Tullsen
lames of the South Dakota Sand Hills... -.S. S. Visher
Mimmlsland Hlora, Origin of... .:. Willard N. Clute
Rolypody, Phe Common ..........%...2 Adella Prescott
anes lant Becomes a Weed, Aw... .. Willard N. Clute
*24
> tn | OY
: Do
Root. Punctured by -Root..2..2 22,2. ...2 re *101
Rudbeckia, Phe Production of new forms in -. = see
Age RARER oa 53 A Onna gee Ne Willard N. Clute 131
Seeds;- SOmgne ges li. eee Willard N. Clute 27
Soaps, Wale os ee Charles Francis Saunders 99
Spider lower sie: 056 eee ee Willard N. Clute” *53
Spleenwort, Ebony, and Shining Clubmoss in Indiana. .
© (0 Xe Fevcee\-te, 16 we Meee; ne 0. delve ile) 0. sie") 0"o-.8) 0] Seles,
Leeann Edwin D. Hull 30
Spleenwort, The Mountain, and its Relatiwes=2 2 = ee
PR A hy epee Oe oe ee .Wilard. No Chae aig
Spring Flowers of Prairie Woods.....- Willard N. Clute *68
Tree Graft, A Natural (2.1...) 44]
Waldtlower, AtWavorite oso ae eee W.W. Batley- 16
EDITORIAL! 136025 2 eee ..96, 76, 114, 154
BooOKS AND! WRITERS => =. 5. 0. =e 38. 18. $16. 157
NOTE AND COMMENT.
Acids in: Po raitse «5. eee eee 151
TATENES1S ee ca eres rh ana 150
Asters, “Wanlettessor <{s2.-<2 ee 148
Bees-ande@ ori eee as ee 111
Bulb -Growanes selome ss. 104
Calochortus macrocanpus — 25s. 113
Camieta, —lowerseand yaes. =e 147
Century:-Planteer es eee 153
Chrysanthemum, The Largest... 74
Climber, An Evergreen ........ 24
Color Correlation in Peaches. .112
Cone. Ay Gisanticg ee ere 144
Conopholis Americana ..... 71, 109
Corny Bees: and. = Sees aghal
Cultivated Viaietics mss. ene cee 22
Epiphyte, A Bulbows.2--..-e.. 145
Fern Bulletin in the Argentine. 66
Pern Pest. A Cunious = 2- 151
Flora, The Ancient Antarctic... 67
Flowering Plant Forms.......- 146
Flowers and the Camera....... 147
Bragrancesotblantce seer 144
Bruit. otnuctines obmniena oe 73
Bruits] Acids=inje eee ee 151
Grasses as Weeds 75> eens 143
Howell, Phomas, Death ot =. -.- 35
iris:-Booksvongtlie: a. sseen 70
irises; “Plantiniots “exces are 112
Krascheninnikowia Maximowic-
ZAATIAN Soyer ea he 2 oe eee 69
Lupine, wate Blooming. ose. 13
Nuts that-ane not. INuis: 2.5 =.) 35
Manganese and Sulphur for
Plants”) .34..22522 oe ore 33
Mendel’s Law and White Prim-
TOSCS” 3. b 3 see eee 107
Mushroom, A. Giant] ee 151
Mycosymbietic Blantsy. 32ee- —= 32
Orchid, A Much Named........ 106
Paper, New Sotirce ot eee eee 31
Peaches, Color Correlations in. .112
Pectins —
Phlox, Changeable = aeeeceee 109
Primroses, White, and Mendel’s
Law
Protecting plants, Reason for... 34
Rudbeckia, Color Changes in... 71
Sassatras, Whites) == pee 68
ecientist and the -Novacesse..-: 72
Shrubs, Familiar, From _ the
Wild 23a 1. 2 eee 142
Soil Organic Compounds in..... 108
oils, Limiting Pactens amen. 70
Spider Flower, Changing Color. 152
Stability at Lash. .2. eee 149
Sunflowers, Wine-red =s- 52-2 149
Trees, Influence of on Rainfall. .110
Tube-rose or Tuber-ose ........ 146
Viola Pedata 2. 33333 153
Viola Pedota and its Variety... 68
Viola Pedata, Distribution of...111
Walnut and Hickory, Lineage of 74
Walnut, Circassia. es 109
Weeds, Grasses asec seaeeeee 143
| Vol. 19. No. 1 Whole Number 96
AMERICAN
FEBRUARY, 1913
25 Cents a Copy; $1.00 a Year ~
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JOLIET, ILLINOIS
The American Botanist
A Quarterly Journal of Economic & Ecological Botany
WILLARD N. CLUTE, EDITOR
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THE FERN BULLETIN
In 1913, at the completion of its twentieth volume, The Fern Bulletin was consoli-
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since they cover the entire formative period of American Fern study they are invaluable
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‘
Tneviacuere}
eee
California Fan Palms (Washingtonia filifera var. robusta)
in Palm Canyon,
RAT ti Re
Tue AMERICAN BOTANIST
VO, XIX JOLIET tei BEBRUARY. 1913 No. 1
One month és past, another ts begun,
Since merry bells rang out the dying year,
And buds of rarest green begin to peer
As tf impatient for a warmer sun;
And though the distant hills are bleak and dun,
Oke virgin snowdrop, like a lambent fire,
Prierces the cold earth with tts green-streaked sptre.
—Hartley Coleridge
IN THE HOME OF THE FAN PALM
By CHARLES FRANCIS SAUNDERS.
HE canyons of the eastern side of the San Jacinto
Mountain, opening on the desert, hold a special in-
terest for the traveler as being the native habitat of the
California fan palm, which in cultivation forms such a con-
spicuous feature of the streets and lawns of Southern Cali-
fornia, as well as some parts of Europe—a tree of dignified
beauty, upon which science has bestowed the name of Wash-
imgtonia in honor of the great first President. Of all these
canyons Palm Canyon is the one that best repays a visit, both
because of the beauty and luxuriance of the groves there,
because of its accessibility—its mouth is thirteen miles from
Palm Springs station on the Southern Pacific Railroad—and
because of the accommodations it offers the camper; for camp
the visitor must, the region being wilderness pure and simple.
Palm Canyon, as well as some of the others, is now a portion
2 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
of the Cleveland National Forest Reserve, and the interest
felt by the local forester in maintaining and increasing the
unique woodland, was evidenced at the time of our visit by
this terse notice penciled on a post of the wire fence that
extended across the canyon’s mouth: “Close: the) @atemsad
don’t want cattle to get in the young palms.”
The first impression that forces itself upon the visitor to
this canyon is that wherever he is, he is certainly not in the
United States, so effectually do these wild palms give the
stamp of strangeness and remoteness to the scenery. The
lower slopes of San Jacinto’s desert side are as barren as the
desert itself—devoid of vegetation save a sparse growth of
xerophytic plants that live with slight regard to moisture.
The canyon sides, therefore, instead of being clad with cling-
ing trees and verdant shrubs, as one naturally expects in a
canyon, are austere uplifts of scattered, sun-burnt rock whose
expanses are unrelieved save here and there by a bulky cactus
or a clump of those unhonored plants that desert dwellers
lump together indiscriminately as sagebrush and greasewood.
From the vantage ground of these treeless sides, one sees,
far down in the bed of the gorge where the stream ripples
along, the winding procession of the stately palms issuing by
hundreds from the fastnesses of the mountain’s rifted sides,
gathering numbers as the canyon widens, and disappearing
finally in the pitiless maw of the all consuming desert. In the
sunlight their rounded crowns, lifted on slender bare trunks
to the height of 80 or 90 feet above the ground, glisten and
nod like the plumed helmets of an army of ancient days. Don
Quixote would surely have taken them for some giant host
bound under a magic spell. Indeed one soon begins to wonder
if an enchantment is not upon the whole place—so unlike the
customary American sort of scene is it, so shut out from the
world of today, so palpable is the silence, so unreal that pul-
sating distance, where, beyond the canyon’s mouth, the dim
~~ enialil
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
SU)
These trees have never beeen fired. Note the thatch of dead leaves.
mountains of the desert stretch bands of unnamable, shifting
colors above the hot, white sands. So still is it that the flight
of a silent bird near by startles us, and our day dream broken,
we clamber down to the bed of the spring.
The stout of limb may wander indefinitely beneath the
shadow of these palms, following the tortuous course of the
stream deep into the secret places of the mighty mountain.
Gray, water-beaten bowlders strew its bed and margins,
their surfaces pounded into smooth pockets and worn into
many a fantastic shape by the aqueous action of ages. With
the memory of the desert fresh upon us, it seems a heavenly
place by these crystal waters, now dropping in musical cas-
cades, now gathered in still pools reflecting their sedgy fringes;
now flowing in open sunlight, now lost in quivering beds of
cattails and rushes and groundsel thickets. Wild flowers of
brilliant hue brighten the tiny, sandy beaches that form: here
and there in the shelter of great rocks—flowers of compelling
charm but so unknown to men that they are nameless except
4 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
in the harsh lexicon of science. For nearly two miles up the
canyon’s bed the palms continue, sometimes standing scat-
tered or in single file, sometimes massed in considerable
groves, little families of thrifty seedlings clustered near them
and reaching up to the light and air through the matted debris
and driftwood that cradled them. Now and then a side gorge
opens into the main one, and looking along its rugged bed we
see more palms descending,
The natural habit of the Vashingtonia is not to shed its old
leaves, but to let them hang, fan downward, in the form of a
brown thatch protecting the bole from the fierce heat of the
desert summer. Normally, therefore, the tree’s trunk 1s
clothed in dead leaves from the base, or nearly so, to the living
crown of green, and this is always the case with the younger
trees. It is a-curious fact, however, that the thunkssom tne
old trees are invariably bare except for a short cluster of brown
foliage immediately beneath the green top, and the trunks
themselves are more or less charred and blackened. It appears
that this is the result of the firing of the trees by Indians, and
thereby hangs two tales.
In the days before the advent of the whites, the red men
of the desert set great store by the palm as the source of food
supply. The fruit is a small, black, stony berry about the size
of a pea, borne in loose, pendant clusters not unlike bunches
of chicken grapes in appearance—and the Indians used regu-
larly to gather these berries, preparing a food from them by
erinding. It is maintained by some that the burning of the
dead leaves as they hung upon the trunks, was with the idea
that the fruitfulness of the trees was thereby increased, just
as blueberry patches in New England are often burned over
by white folk to improve that crop. There is, however,
another explanation of the charred palms. Under the old
order of aboriginal life, each grove was considered the property
of some one clan of the tribe; and whenever a member of that
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
or
clan died, fire was set to one of its trees. As the flames
mounted upward, fed by the accumulation of dead leaves, the
spirit of the tree was believed to be released, and taking its
place by the departed spirit of the man, became his servant in
death as its outward form had been his servant in life. So
its grateful shade moved with him and protected him from
the sun on his journey across the treeless sands to his long
home. This latter explanation is discredited by the “practical
man,” but the folk-lorist and the poet do not find it incon-
sistent with the Indian’s habit of thought.
Pasadena, Cal.
THE CULTIVATION OF THE IRIS
By WiLLARD NA Giuae: me
25
a
N classical mythology, Iris was the goddess of the rainbow
and to moderns the name is still suggestive of deep and
brilliant color. It was therefore most appropriate that the
plants we commonly know as “flags” should be given the name
of iris for a generic title. All the tints of the rainbow, in fact,
with the possible exception of deep red, are to be found in the
flowers of different species, though the blossoms of the group,
as a whole, incline to the lovely blues, violets and lavenders
that are usually rare in any collection of flowers. Orchids
may, indeed, outrival them in bizarre forms and color patterns,
but in matters of pure color alone, the irises are probably
superior. To call them “the poor man’s orchids,” as is some-
times done, is to “Damn them with faint praise.”
For centuries flower lovers were content to cultivate
grandmother’s purple and white flag lilies without thought of
trying to improve them or of introducing more desirable
plants though here and there an occasional new form crépt into
cultivation, but now that plant collectors and nurserymen have
begun to ransack the earth for the more beautiful species it is
not surprising to know that the cultivation of irises is fast
growing in popularity.
There are rather more than a hundred different species of
iris in the world besides a large number of varities and hybrids
produced by cultivation. The family to which our plants
belong is noted for the production of beautiful flowers and
aap
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 7
includes the gladiolus, crocus, freesia, ixia and many others.
The little blue-eyed grass of damp meadows is a sort of poor
relation of the more regal members. The family (Iridaceae)
is especially well represented in South Africa, but the irises are
all plants of the northern hemisphere though a few extend their
The tall growth of the Siberian Iris is characteristic.
(Courtesy of Meehans’ Garden Bulletin.)
range to the countries south of the Mediterranean. The dry
region extending from Asia Minor to Persia seems to be the
headquarters of the genus, just as South Africa is for the
gladiolus, but irises are also found in Japan, Siberia and
throughout Europe and North America.
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
D
Tris pallida Dalmatica is one of the finest of all. Its very
large flowers are delightfully fragrant,
(Courtesy of Meehans’ Garden Bulletin.)
In size, irises range from the little /ris cristata of our
southern pine barrens which ts less than six inches high when
full grown, to the great Jris Orientalis of Syria which attains
a height of as many feet. A large number of the species are
evergreen, or nearly so, and give a tinge of green to the garden
even in winter. Jris foetidissima is especially noted in this
connection and has, in addition, the distinction of being the
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 9
only species in the genus with bright red seed pods. /ris fulva,
or Iris cuprea of the older books, has copper red flowers, the
mourning iris (/ris susiana) has flowers heavily veined with
deep brown and black while several closely related species have
flowers equally curious in markings. Js pseudacorus, a
European plant naturalized in many moist places in America,
has golden yellow flowers, those of the Florentine iris (/ris
Florentina) are milk white, while those of the snake’s head
iris (Iris tuberosa) are green and black. Jris sambucina has
flowers with the scent of elder blossoms. The snake’s head
iris is medicinal, while from the Florentine iris comes the
familiar orris root, the word orris evidently being a corruption
of iris.
Since the irises are practically all plants of the North
Temperate Zone, they are likely to prove perfectly hardy in
the United States. There is a prevalent impression that irises
are difficult to grow in ordinary gardens, but this is a mistake,
due, probably to the fact that our best known native species,
the blue flag (Iris versicolor), is found in low grounds. On
the contrary, nearly all irises thrive in any good soil and delight
in sunny situations. The blue flag itself, is especially vigorous
in such surroundings. As a matter of fact, the irises, like
their relatives the crocus and gladiolus, are dry ground, almost
desert, plants. A Japanese species (Iris tectorum) grows on
the thatched roofs in its native land, and even those species
_that grow naturally in water have many of the features of
drouth plants, such as underground storage organs, and
narrow leaves covered with wax or “bloom” and turned edge-
wise to the sun. Even the internal structure of the leaf and
stem is similar to plants of dry regions. Though the situations
in which many species grow may be wet in spring, they are
often exceedingly dry in midsummer. The average garden
is thus seen to present conditions quite suitable to irises and
our hot dry summers have no serious effects upon them; in
10 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
fact, many species become quite dormant at this season and the
temperature makes no difference to them,
The way to succeed with most irises is to plant them in
good garden soil in a sunny situation and then let them alone.
During the growing season they need as much water as other
plants, but not more. They may be given a light mulch in
winter though most species appear to get along all right
without this. One section of the family, however; requires
more care. This is the so-called Oncocyclus or cushion iris
section whose members came originally from a region so hot
and dry that they die down to the ground after flowering.
With us, instead of having to be given water, they actually have
to be protected from it for part of the year, either by means
of hot-bed sashes placed over them or by being dug up and
placed under shelter; otherwise they would start into growth
at the wrong time. ‘These plants require considerable lime in
the soil to do well; in fact nearly all irises are fond of lime.
The Japanese iris (/ris laevigata) is one of the few that are
supposed to dislike lime, and its cultivation is not always
attended with success, but it is one of the handsomest of the
family and its beauty makes it worth much care,
Not only do the irises thrive in gardens, but those most
often cultivated are so well suited to such conditions that they
multiply very rapidly. ‘They really ought to be dug up every
three or four years and thinned out. All the irises grow from
underground stems which are either rhizomes or corms. The
rhizomes are thickened root-like parts extending horizontally
at or just beneath the surface of the earth from which the real
roots grow. ‘The corms, usually miscalled bulbs, are erect and
somewhat deeper in the soil. The species with rhizomes mul-
tiply most rapidly. The main axis branches again and again
and each branch with its quota of roots will form a new plant.
If one wishes to multiply his specimens he has only to tear the
plants to pieces and replant the separate parts.
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 11
Although there are a great many species of iris in cultiva-
tion, it is not easy to get a very extensive collection together
for the reason that the nurserymen carry only a few standard
sorts, and even these are not always correctly named. One
may flatter himself that he is accumulating a creditable array
of species, only to find later that most of his p!ants, handsome
though they be, are varities of the common German iris (I7is
The Japanese Iris is one of the most beautiful.
(Courtesy of Meehans’ Garden Bulletin.)
Germanica), or hybrids between it and allied plants. All the
so-called species listed under the names /ris neglecta, I. hybrida,
and J. plicata are of this nature. They are only strains bred
up from Iris pallida, I. sambucina and I. variegata. An iris
fancier has therefore two ways open to him. He may collect
the more handsome named sorts or he may go in for the
botanical species. By the first method he will secure more
12 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
varied flowers; by the second, more interesting specimens. If
he is collecting species, however, he should beware of all plants
bearing fanciful names. Specimens bearing the names of
gardeners, noted men and the like are pretty certain to be
hybrids or varities. Of the botanical species, some of the
best to start with, in addition to those already mentioned are
longipetala, verna, Missourtensis, Sibirica, pumila, cypriana,
flavescens, benacensis and pallida dalmatica. All these belong
to the section having rhizomes. Of the so-called bulbous sec-
tion the Spanish iris (Jris xiphium), the English iris (Iris
xiphioides) and the netted iris (Jris reticulata) with their
varieties are most desirable. The best time to divide or trans-
plant the irises is just after growth ceases or as it is beginning.
Those species which rest in summer are best planted in early
autumn, though they may be moved in early spring with the
others.
THE MOUNTAIN SPLEENWORT AND ITS
RELATIVES
BY WairrarpeN. Clute.
T does not take a beginning fern student long to discover
that most ferns have rather definite habitats. Though
swamp and bog may seem nearly synonymous in our everyday
speech, they are by no means the same to ferns and each has
its appropriate species. The same is true of rock-loving ferns
which, with few exceptions, will not grow anywhere except
on rocks and even there are found to have a perception of the
differences between different rocks that would do credit to a
mineralogist. The fondness of the walking fern and cliff
brake for limestone is well known, and, while we cannot say
that these plants are never found on other kinds of rocks, the
instances when they are, are sufficiently remarkable to be note-
worthy. :
As a general thing, sandstones have the poorest fern flora,
shales seldom harbor the rarities beloved of the fern collector,
granites are the homes of several interesting species, and lime-
stone supports the most luxuriant and varied flora of all. It
is not to be inferred, however, that the first ledge of limestone
will contain all or even any of the rarities. These plants have
a most perplexing and seemingly capricious way of occurring
in unexpected places, and the collector may ransack the cliffs
by the hour without finding any but common species and
finally discover, often by the merest accident, a colony of some
long-sought plants ensconced in a cranny that is all but inac- .
cessible.
14 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
Mountain Spleenwort. It roots in crannies so narrow that it can
only be dug out with difficulty.
Among the most interesting of the rock ferns are the
Asplemums. The novice regards them with favor because
each form is so clear-cut that he seldom has difficulty in identi-
fying it, while the older student knows from long experience
that finding some forms 1s so largely a matter of chance that
the possibility of seeing them in a new situation adds zest
to many a botanical outing. The Asplenims as a group are
not confined to any particular kind of rock, though different
species may have individual peculiarities in this direction, and
are seldom found far from their preferred habitats. Most of
them prefer limestone or other rocks in which lime is present.
The maidenhair spleenwort (Asplenium trichomanes) appears
to be the least particular of the family as regards the kind of
rock it inhabits and in consequence is found nearly throughout
_ the world where rocks abound. It is likely to be the first mem-
ber of the group to be found by the young collector and often
is the only one for a long time. Other members of the family
are more particular, not only as regards the rocky support, but
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 15
as to climate, shade, moisture and other things as well. Tem-
perature, for instance, plays a large part in the distribution of
the green spleenwort (Asplenium viride). It spreads around
the world in the Far North, but only occasionally creeps over
the northern boundary into the United States. After the
maidenhair spleenwort, the little wall rue or rue spleenwort
(Asplemum ruta-muraria) 1s probably most often found. It is
widely distributed in the Old World, growing on old walls as
well as on rocks, but it never becomes so common with us.
Though it ranges from Canada nearly to the Gulf, many ferns
students have never seen it growing.
Still rarer 1s the mountain spleenwort (Aspleniuwm mon-
tanum ) shown in our illustration, which competes with the rue
spleenwort in parts of its American range. In general appear-
ance it 1s much like the better known species though its fronds
are somewhat narrower and the pinnules less fan-shaped. In
some localities it seems to be a fairly common species, but in
many large areas it is marked rare or absent. Like many of
its congeners, it roots in crannies so narrow that it can only be
dug out with difficulty if at all, and it is probable that this
habit, together with its small size has had much to do with
preserving it from extinction. Its preference is for rather
dryish rocks and it can endure some sunshine though it flour-
ishes best in shade.
A FAVORITE WILDFLOWER
By Dr OW. W. BAe
HILE in a general way we recognize trailing arbutus as
a spring flower, we cannot fairly refer it to any par-
ticular spring month. Its annual appearance depends upon wider
and more definite views of environment. Its natural range is
from Newfoundland to the far Northwest and southward
to Florida, though in its farthest southern range it is usually
found only in hilly districts. Of course, then, the latitude and
climate will prove important factors in the time of its appear-
ance. To take an example, it would naturally be found earlier
in New York than in Maine or the Maritime Provinces of
Canada. ‘Then, too, our seasons vary astonishingly from year
to year, and while it might present itself in Rhode Island at
one time in March, it more commonly waits till April and has
no certain engagement even then. Every plant lover knows
that early spring flowers are most capricious in their annual
appearance, but by the middle of May the species bloom
according to established schedule.
“Mayflower,” then is, often a misnomer; in Nova Scotia,
where it used to be graven on some of the small coins antece-
dent to the Dominion, the title is more appropriate. In
southern New England it is usually in advanced bloom or even
out of flower by May. I do not say “in fruit” as it rarely
indulges in that method of propagation, relying rather upon
its trails. Observation will reveal, too, a tendency to a sepa-
ration of the sexes. Some flowers of the species are perfect,
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 17
while others are strictly staminate or pistillate. The old terms,
male and female, are usually avoided in modern botanical
writings as modified views, too recondite for present discus-
sion, now prevails. These are interesting from an evolu-
tionary point of view, as going to show genetic connection
between the lowest and highest plants.
Our plant’s other popular name is equally erroneous and
founded merely on a family resemblance to the actual arbutus,
a shrub of Europe. The scientific apellation, Epigaea repens,
is pretty and significant and denotes that it grows upon the
ground—a fact, indeed, which both generic and specific names
emphasize. “A creeping plant which grows upon the earth”
is surely sufficiently redundant, not to say a bit absurd, but
one is often better off for not being able to read one’s libretto.
There are two very closely related species, ours and the
very similar one of Japan. It may perhaps be remembered by
some readers, and will interest all, that one of the observations
which entitle Asa Gray to his world wide fame, is his discov-
ery and proof that the plants of eastern North America, very
closely resemble, and. in many cases are identical with, those
of eastern Asia. This subject is pleasantly discussed in Gray’s
“Darwiniana”’ in the Chapter entitled “Sequoia.”
The use of a scientific name when euphonius is often de-
sirable, as it 1s employed by the scientific world, hence the
employment of latin as the court or diplomatic language. Ours
is not as strict latin, even, as that of the church, but being
devoid of verbs is easy to acquire. It is much too mongrelized
with greek. “Mayflower,” however, would convey either an
erroneous or no idea to a Russian or a Japanese or even a
Frenchman, and “arbutus’’ would confuse a Swiss or Italian
having in mind a very different plant. I should add that I
believe in employing the vernacular when pretty and befitting.
Who would wish to sacrifice the dear old English names daisy
(the “day’s eye’ of Chaucer), primrose (the “first rose’),
18 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
clover, tansy, sweet marjoram, pimpernel, thyme, self-heal,
and a host of others enshrined in our literature.
Arbutus loves to hide itself under masses of fallen leaves
or pine needles and prefers a sandy soil. With a stick or
cane one goes prodding among the rustling leaves, seeking
for floral treasures. Suddenly, with a. lucky “cast,” as the
angler would say, there is revealed a bed of rosy, blushing,
flowers with spicy ineffable fragrance, as if the fragrant chal-
ices had in some mystic way caught and transmuted the
divine odors of pine, birch, fern, and partridge berry.
The humble plant never suggests the garden; indeed, it
shrinks from coddling and is killed by over kindness. Very
seldom, in my experience does it succeed in cultivation. Even
with the best success, it 1s apt to run out after a season or two,
unlike hepatica which takes lovingly to petting. Who of us
“srown-ups, who of Dr. Holmes’ “superfluous decade,” can
forget the far off days, when youth and maid together, we
went hunting for the firstlings of spring. One who knows
Epigaea only from the tinsel-bedecked, scrappy, handfuls sold
on the city streets, has never seen the actual plami ei. 1s
cruelty to vegetation to treat it so. Pegasus cannot pull the
plough; the born aristocrat will not take the arm of the bour-
geois, nor the wild, shy arbutus seek city associates. She must
be known in her chosen home under pines and oaks afar from
city noise and dust.
Providence, R. I.
THE PELICAN PLANT
OW and then, in the larger conservatories, one may come
upon the curious pelican plant (Aristolochia gigas) in
blossom. The flowers are worth going some distance to see
for they are among the largest and most remarkable in the
plant kingdom. In general shape they are not unlike the
blossoms of the common Dutchman’s pipe (Aristolochia sipho),
a hardy vine native to the Mississippi valley, that is often
planted for shade and ornament about porches, arbors and the
like, but nobody who has seen only the small greenish flowers
of this latter species can imagine those of its gigantic tropical
relative. A few other flowers may possibly exceed it in the
total spread of their parts, but if the measurements of our
plant are taken across the widest part only, no other flower
can equal it. Good specimens may measure nearly five feet
across, these figures, of course, including the long slender,
tail-like continuation of the corolla. Exclusive of the “tail,”
_the broad, trumpet-shaped limb, as the border of the corolla
is called, is frequently two feet long and a foot wide. We
can quite believe the report that the children in the plant’s
native country often, in play, use the flowers for caps. They
are certainly large enough for the purpose.
Viewed from the front, the flower has little to suggest
the common name of the plant, but a side view presents a very
striking resemblance to some large bird with neck bent and
head reposing on its breast. The general color is a pale
creamy white with the exception of the opening to the flower
and the region immediately surrounding it, which is deep
maroon. ‘This latter color also spreads out in a network of
20 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
purple veins which forms a fairly regular pattern on the upper
surface of the flower.. Practically all the imeimberss ogee
genus Aristolocia have flowers similar in shape to those of
Aristolochia gigas. There is great variety, to be sure, in the
shape of the corolla border and the curved corolla tube, but
in all, a general and fundamental resemblance may be seen.
This is accounted for by the fact that the flowers are all pol-
The Pelican plant (Aristolochia gigas).
(Courtesy of Gardeners’ Chronicle.)
linated in much the same way and that the peculiar form 1s
necessary to carry out the designs of the plant. The whole
process of pollination is very curious and is performed for the
most part by small insects. To attract these, the flowers have
a strong and, to us, usually disagreeable odor, though it seems
to be agreeable enough to the insects which visit them in large
numbers. The odor of the species illustrated is said by some
to resemble that of old tobacco, while others report it as
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 21
nauseating. The writer has not found it very noticeable in
any way. ‘The insects attracted to the flower, and guided by
the colored throat of the corolla, swarm into the corolla tube
where they encounter a zone of stiff hairs pointing inward.
These act as a sort of trap. It is easy enough for the insects
to push further into the flower, but when they attempt to
return, the zone of hairs bars the way. The insects are thus
kept prisoners, often for several days. The flower provides
for its guests, however, and they are said to exhibit no desire
to escape. When the flower first blooms, the stamens are
immature but the stigma is receptive. If the visiting insects
have come from another flower, pollination is soon effected.
The insects are not released, however, until the stamens have
ripened. When this occurs the visitors are showered with
pollen and immediately thereafter the zone of hairs withers
and they escape to visit some other flower and repeat the
process.
The family to which the pelican plant belongs is known
as the Aristolochiaceae and contains nearly two hundred
species. The climbing species mostly belong to the genus
Aristolochia while the ground-loving forms are found in the
genus Asarum. The majority are found in the warmer parts
of the world and are especially abundant in Central and South
America. The species under discussion comes from Nicaragua.
The Aristolochias do not usually spread far beyond the tropics,
though there are several species in our Southern States and
the Dutchman’s pipe reaches Minnesota. The members of the
genus Asarum are less impressed by the cold and may be
found in many parts of the North Temperate Zone, both in
Europe and America. The well-known birthwort or Canada
ginger (Asarum Canadense), with heart-shaped leaves and
dull red flowers borne close to the earth, is our most familiar
species,
The specimen from which our illustration was made was
grown by William Kleinheinz at Ogontz, Pa. In our latitude
22 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
the plant must, of course, be grown under glass. It is said to
do well in a temperature of 55 to 58 degrees and ordinarily
flowers twice a year.
CULTIVATED VARITIES.—Regarding the forms of creation
Linnaeus wrote that “there are as many different species as
the Infinite Being created in the beginning’ and this idea has
largely prevailed in the public mind to the present day. It is
a mistake, however, to assume that species are unchanging
or that new forms appear only at long intervals. As a matter
of fact, such forms arise annually. One has only to visit the
nearest large area of plants in flower to discover many of them,
and the principal reason they do not persist and become distinct
species is because the type from which they spring is better
adjusted to the surroundings than they are. If one will take
the trouble to protect these aberrant forms they may be con-
tinued indefinitely and their peculiarities accentuated. It is
such care and cultivation that have given us the many forms
of garden flowers, often a hundred or more from a single
original species. The catalogue of any seedsman will present
much evidence on this point. Someone who has been invest-
igating the matter reports that of pinks there are 50 forms,
of petunias 57, pansies 62, poppies 68, nasturtiums 78, chrys-
anthemums 109, sweet peas 166, pyrethrums 180, larkspurs
218, carnations 224, phloxes 346, asters 457 and peonies 657.
If you have a favorite flower of which you would like a new
variety, sow plenty of seeds, select your own variety and
breed sit ip.
THE PELI NUT
Bye \WirearD oN: «CLUE,
NEW kind of nut is beginning to appear in our markets.
As yet it 1s so rare as to be somewhat exclusive and 1s
not likely to be found anywhere except in the best shops where
it mingles on terms of equality with the litchee, the pinyon, the
pistachio and various foreign fruits. In time it may come to
the indignity of being included in “mixed nuts’ and thus
become familiar to. everybody. Though still rare it has
already acquired a fine collection of common names and 1s
The Peli-nut resembles the Brazil-nut.
known as paradise-nut, angel-nut, Hawaiian cream-nut and
angle-nut. To these must also be added the names it bears
in its home land, the most familiar of which are Java almond,
peli-nut and kanari or canary-nut. The name of paradise-nut,
by which it 1s most frequently known in our shops, is evidently
a misnomer due to confusing it with the seeds of the real
paradise-nut, a South American species related to the Brazil-
nut.
24 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
In appearance the peli-nut suggests the Brazil-nut, though
it is not easy to say how, for it is smooth where the Brazil-nut
is rough, is sharp-pointed instead of blunt, and in cross section
forms an equilateral triangle, while a similar section of the
Brazil-nut inclines to the form known as an isoceles triangle.
Though suggesting the Brazil-nut, it happens that the two
species are not closely related. Our species is the seed of a
drupe-like fruit produced by a tropical tree belonging to the
Balsiminaceae, a plant family represented in our region by the
familiar touch-me-not (Impatiens) of moist grounds and the
common lady’s-slipper of old fashioned gardens. The genus
to which it belongs, is called Canarium and includes a con-
siderable number of evergreen trees scattered through the East
Indies and adjacent lands. The nuts that come to market are
said to be derived from Canarium Lugonicum or C. commune.
They are plentiful in the Philippines and their recent appear-
ance in our markets is doubtless due to the fact that the
government of those islands is at present administered by
Americans.
The kernel of the nut is soft and oily, with a mild flavor
resembling an almond, though in taste, and shape also, it sug-
gests the Brazil-nut. In the East Indies, an oil for cooking
and lighting is expressed from the nuts. It is sold under the
name of kanari-oil and is said to be better than cocoanut oil
for these purposes. The wood of the several species of Cana-
rium contains a fragrant resin which has some medicinal
properties. One species called the black dammar tree yields
a brilliant black gum occasionally used as a drug, and Manila
elemi is another medicinal resin produced by an allied species.
THE COMMON POLYPODY
BY ADELLA EPRESCODT
HERE is a happy-go-lucky air about the common poly-
pody (Polypodwm vulgare) when growing in its chosen
haunts that gives it a peculiar charm. Distaining the rich leaf
mold that fills the pockets of its beloved rocks it clings to the
surface of the flat tops, making dense matted borders of vig-
orous green fronds along the edges of the larger rocks and
spreading quite across the smaller ones. It is not a large fern,
being rarely more than twelve or fifteen inches in height and
often much smaller, but it holds its dark-green, leathery
fronds with such confident and careless grace, even in the most
precarious situations, that one cannot help noticing and ad-
miring® it.
26 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
While the polypody reaches its finest development on the
surfaces of rocks, it does not demand any special kind and
occasionally spills over onto stumps and roots of trees if they
are fairly dry. In fact, the first polypodies I had the pleasure
of finding, were on roots of trees at the base of a limestone cliff,
but they were poor specimens indeed, compared with the thou-
sands of sturdy plants I found growing on the top of great
masses of conglomerate two years later. How they obtained
food for such vigorous growth I cannot understand for many
of the rocks were bare of soil and at best had but a scanty
covering, but I have never seen more luxuriant growth and
one need not be a sage to find a little sermon in a polypody-
covered rock.
The fronds of the polypody are rather odd in outline,
thick and leathery in texture and remain green all winter.
They grow from a slender rootstock that creeps over the sur-
face of the rocks and have a short slender stipe and narrowly
pinnate or pinnatifid blade. The pinnules are linear, rather
blunt and sometimes toothed, and bear on the back a double
row of large yellowish sor1 mostly on the upper part of the
frond. The fruit dots have no indusium and are borne on the
ends of the veins. This species has a superficial resemblance
to the Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides)-but the
differences are many and easily found when one begins to
look for them.
Our present species is found nearly throughout North
America and has several varieties, of which Cambricum,
originally found in Wales and but rarely in this country, is
the most noted. This has a frond much broader than the type
and the pinnae are cut nearly to the midrib. Other varieties
are angustum with narrow toothed pinnules, rotundatum, with
short rounded pinnules, and cristatwm with pinnules forked
and crested. All may be looked for with the type, though
perhaps not often found.
SOWING SEEDS
O those who have not tried it, nothing seems easier than
getting plants of a desired kind. You simply plant the
seeds, wait a few weeks and there are your plants. Un-
nOnvumately the process is; not so simpe. Jo be. sure the
weeds spring up without their seeds being planted at all and
the young plants develop apace in spite of the gardener, but
it is not so with cultivated things. All but the hardy few must
be nursed and coddled and defended from their enemies often
till long past infancy.
A little experience in planting will show that the seeds ot
different species vary greatly in the way they respond to the
ministrations of the gardener. Some will grow before they
are mature, others as soon as mature, while a large number
seem to insist upon a period of rest and will not grow until
they have had it. Still other seeds are known which will not
germinate until more than one growing season has passed.
As a general thing, the seeds of annuals are most easily
induced to grow. With such plants it is usually “now or
never.” Their span of life is too short to admit of any delays.
This circumstance may account for the fact that the plants
most frequently grown from seeds in cottage gardens are
annuals. They are so nearly certain to grow that they are
prime favorites with inexperienced flower lovers. © With
perennials, however, it is different. The very seedlings seem
to feel that they have plenty of time. They are often slow in
appearing and still slower in developing, taking months to
28 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
produce substance that would not keep an annual busy for a
week. The majority do not bloom at all the first season and
some even require two or three years to reach blooming size.
It is these slow growing perennials that give the gardener
the most trouble, though they are usually worth it because of
the number of years that the plants produce flowers when once
established. Under greenhouse conditions the grower expects
every viable seed to produce a plant, but when seeds are sown
in the ground out of doors, such expectations are seldom
realized. There may be reasons why fresh looking seeds will
not grow indoors or out. They may have been gathered
before they were mature, they may have been frozen before
they were thoroughly dried, or they may be too old. The
nature of the food store is seeds may also affect this latter
result, starchy seeds commonly remaining viable much longer
than seeds containing oil. In some specimens, such as the
canna, lotus, and our fruit and nut trees, the testa is so im-
pervious to water that they may fail to grow for a long time
if a hole is not filed through the protecting cover. Sometimes
boiling water 1s poured over such seeds to hasten germination.
Stone fruits, such as peach and cherry are usually planted in
fall so that the frost may split the testas, or they are stratified
in a box of moist sand and kept damp until spring.
If one would have success with seeds planted in the open
ground, there are several things that must be taken into
account. First of all the soil should be warm and well
pulverized. Seeds of the hardy annuals and perennials may
be sown as soon as the ground can be worked in spring and
some may even be sown the previous autumn, but with seeds
about which there is any doubt, there is no advantage, and
there may be some loss, by being in too great a hurry to plant.
The seeds of perennial plants are often not planted until June
or later.
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 29
After seeds are planted, the surface of the ground should
not be allowed to dry out. This is probably the most im-
portant single condition in raising seedings. It is not enough
to water the soil daily, for if the very surface becomes dry
between waterings it may affect the result. Alternate water-
ing and drying is also likely to puddle the soil and form a crust
over it through which the seedlings have difficulty in pushing.
The best way is to cover each row as soon as planted with a
light mulch of straw, lawn clippings, or the like. This keeps
the soil from crusting over, holds in the moisture, and renders
daily watering unnecessary. When the young plants appear,
part of the mulch may be removed and the remainder left to
keep the ground from drying out, the plants growing up
through it. Old newspapers or cloth may be used instead of
the mulch though they are not so good since they must be
removed entirely as soon as the seedlings appear.
In sowing seeds a good rule is to place them four times
their depth in the soil. Very small seeds are simply scattered
on the surface and lightly pressed into the soil. These latter,
especially, should be covered with a mulch, since many seeds
will not grow when exposed to the light, even if the surface is
kept moist. It is not always desirable to firm the soil over
seeds. It depends somewhat on the nature of the ground in
which they are planted. The object in compacting the soil
is to bring the seeds into contact with as many moist particles
of earth as possible, but when a mulch is maintained this is
not necessary and in clay soils it may be harmful by forming
a surface too hard for the young plants to penetrate.
After the seedlings appear one is not always warranted
in assuming that success has been attained. In plants that
form partnerships with the bacteria, such as the legumes—
plants belonging to the pea family—the proper bacteria may
be absent and thus the young plants may languish and die.
30 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
One can never tell until he tries, however, and if success is
possible, it may be most easily attained by keeping in mind
the rules laid down in this article.
EBONY SPLEENWORT AND SHINING CLUB
MOSS IN NORTHWEST INDIANA
BY Bowin Doone
The “Fern Flora of Indiana” in the Fern Bulletin
for October, 1911, does not record the ebony spleenwort
(Asplenium platyneuron) from the northern part of the state
except in the extreme northeastern portion. On October 12,
1912, in company with a class from the University of Chicago,
I found a single juvenile specimen of this fern on the eastern
slope of a large sand dune somewhat near Lake Michigan in
Porter County. The dune had long been covered with vege-
tation which accounts for the occurrence of such a plant. It
was associated with the common maidenhair (Adiantum pe-
datum) which was fairly abundant. Other specimens might
have been found if time permitted. The occurrence of such a
fern in the dune region is remarkable and it is certain that
there are very few places where it could exist.
Lycopodium lucidulum is another fernwort that the “Fern
Flora of Indiana” does not record from Lake County. On
November 30, 1912, I found two specimens on the south border
of the bed of the old Calumet river at Millers. The nearest
locality to Millers where I have seen the plant is near Sawyer,
Berrien County, Michigan. Both the plants found were much
dwarfed, being not over 7 cm, tall in vigor falling far behind
those seen in Michigan, so it appears likely that the Indiana
habitat is not favorable. One plant had a very few sporangia
in the axils of the upper leaves; the other had none, but on
both abundant gemmae occurred. The plants are in my col-
lection.
VN
G NOTE and COMMENT
LSI
AN EVERGREEN CLIMBER.—It is a difficult matter to find
climbing vines that will retain their leaves through the winter
in our climate. The Japanese honeysuckle (Lomicera Japon-
ica) approaches this condition in mild winters but it cannot be
depended on. According to a writer in The Garden Maga-
gine a vine that completely fits the description 1s another Jap-
anese plant known as Euonymus radicans var. vegetus. This
species is related to our common bittersweet and burning bush
and like them bears orange capsules that ultimately split open
and display the red-arilled seeds which last nearly through the
winter. The leaves are said to endure the winters of New
England unharmed, In northern regions, however, it will doubt-
less succeed best on north walls or in other situations where
it is protected from the effects of the winter sun. The plant
climbs readily by adventitious roots and so does not need
special supports. It may be noted in passing that the name of
the genus to which our plant belongs is no longer spelled
Euonymus. At the time the name was first applied the alpha-
bet was not as rich as it now is and lacked the letter u. In
consequence many of the words we now spell with a u were
originally spelled with a v. This is true of Euonymus and
taxonomists actually expect us to make it Evonymus in future.
NEw Source oF Paper.—A large number of plants can
be made into paper, but the value of the produce depends a
great deal upon the nature of the plant tissue used. The fibers
must be of a size to mat into smooth firm paper and strong
enough to endure considerable strain.. Few plant substances
ise)
bo
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
possess all the necessary qualifications. The paper made from
cornstalks, for instance, is too weak for many uses, while that
made from manilla hemp is one of the strongest known, being
exceeded only by some of the tough papers of the Japanese
which are supposed to be made from the paper mulberry and
bamboo. ‘The steady demand for tough papers that can be
produced cheaply incline paper makers to examine with care
every promising source of material. According to a recent
Kew Bulletin, this quest for new paper stock has led to a very
favorable report on a plant belonging to the ginger family.
The plant, which has no common name, is known to botanists
as Hedychiwm coronarium. It reaches a height of ten feet or
more and when growing looks much like the common canna
so frequently used in decorative planting. Not only is the
paper made from it a third stronger than manilla, but owing
to the plant’s possession of certain cells containing mucilage, it
has many of the qualities of parchment and without first under-
going the special preparation necessary with other papers, will
take ink without blotting. The Hedychium plant is a tropical
species that thrives in moist places. The prospect of making
tropical swamps yield a valuable return through the growth of
this plant seems now most favorable.
MycosyMBioTIc PLANTS.—The word mycosymbiotic has
been devised to characterize those flowering plants which
depend for at least a part of their food upon an association
with fungi. Parasites, as is well known, depend entirely upon
other living species for food, while saprophytes differ from
these only in securing food from dead organisms. In both
these groups the advantage of the association is all on one side,
but in a third group where the association is known as sym-
biosis, two plants, usually a colorless fungus and a nearly
independent green plant, form a partnership in which each
gains something. The fungus may secure water for the green
plant and receive in return food elaborated by its partner-
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 33
In this group belong the mycosymbiotic plants. Nobody seems
to know just why or how independent green plants have come
to depend upon fungi in this way but the habit seems to be
very wide spread and new instances of it are constantly
coming to light. Many, if not all, the species of orchids, lilies,
pinks, amaryllises, saxifrages, oaks, legumes, gentians, heaths,
figworts, and conifers, and species allied to them, are believed
to have the habit. Some of the puzzling questions involved
in the distribution of plants appear to be connected in various
ways with such phenomena.
MANGANESE AND SULPHUR FOR PLANTS.—In all the
books we are told that there are only ten chemical elements
absolutely needed by plants in building up vegetable substance.
These ten are oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, iron, sul-
phur, phosphorus, calcium (lime), potassium (potash), and
magnesium. It appears, however, that even these ten are not
all used in plant substances though their presence in plants has
been shown to be in some way connected with their well being.
It has been conjectured that those elements found in plants
that do not occur in plant substances are of use in promoting
various plant processes in which other elements are used. Still
other elements found in plants have long been reputed to be
of no use whatever and their occurrence in the plant has been
explained on the theory that they were dissolved in the soil
water and entered the plant along with other solutes. Recent
experiments, however, seem to show that even these may have
unsuspected uses. An application of manganese, for instance,
has been shown to increase the crop from twenty-five to fifty
percent. Since this element is not a necessary constituent of any
of the manufactured products of plants, its stimulating effect
probably comes from the influence it has on the chemical
reactions between other elements. Sulphur is known to be
absolutely necessary to plants and it has always been assumed
that there is enough in practically all soils for the needs of
34 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
plants, but the application of this substance either in the
ordinary powdered form or as asulphate has led to some
unexpected results. Recent analyses have shown that plants
use far more sulphur than has been suspected and it is possible
that they may fail to do their best for lack of this element.
The members of the cress family, especially, contain much
sulphur, an ordinary crop of turnips or cabbage removing
nearly a hundred pounds per acre. Other crops use from fifty
to seventy-five pounds per acre. Sulphur is known to be a
powerful germicide and it is possible that some of its beneficial
effect on crops comes from its influences on these organisms.
REASON FOR PROTECTING PLANTs.—It doesn’t matter in
the least how you protect your plants, trees and shrubs this
winter so long as you get certain results. We wear clothes,
not only to keep us warm but to avoid sunburn and mosquito
bites. In the same way we mulch and wrap and bank up the
garden for several diverse purposes. Many of our fruits,
flowers and vegetables are existing under conditions far differ-
ent from those in which they originated, so when the weather
gets severe it 1s only fair to make the surroundings as home-
like as possible. These are the dangers against which we give
winter protection. Low temperatures and cold winds, actual
freezing of the moisture which ruptures and destroys the
tissues, the heaving of alternately frozen and thawed heavy
soil which tears plants out of the ground, the whipping and
breaking of branches and vines by the wind, the scalding
effects of direct sunlight, the unnatural winter growth stimu-
lated by a few warm days, excessive drying out of the soil,
and the breaking of branches overloaded by snow. Different
plants are threatened by different dangers. Study their
habits, natures, needs and use in your protective work not
only straw and leaves but also plenty of reason and common
sense.—Garden Magazine.
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 35
DratH oF THomMaAsS Howetu.—The death of Thomas
Howell at Portland, Oregon, on December 3, 1912, removed
from this life one of the most remarkable of botanists. It is
reported that his educational opportunities were limited to a
single term of six months in a log school house in the
Northwest, yet notwithstanding this handicap, he became
an acknowledged authority on the plants of his region and
wrote a monumental work entitled “The Flora of Northwest
America” in which he described a large number of new species
he had discovered. ‘There is a story, which may well be true,
that Howell set up most of the type for this book, teaching
himself the printers’ trade in order to do so. Such feats were
very characteristic of the man. Howell was born in Missouri
seventy years ago and removed with his parents to the North-
west when he was but eight years old, the entire distance
being covered by ox-team. His career may serve as an inspira-
tion to students better situated who are inclined to murmur at
their lack of opportunity.
Nuts THAT ARE NoT Nuts.—Let us take in illustration,
some of the fruits that are popularly and erroneously called
“nuts.” Why isa Brazil-nut not a nut? Because it 1s a seed—
one of many from a large box. Why is a peanut not a nut?
Because it is a pod. Why is a walnut not a nut? Because it
is the stone of a drupe. Why is a horse-chestnut not a nut?
Because the fruit is really a capsule with big seeds. Why is a
cocoanut not a nut? Because it is the stone of a large drupe
with a leathery epicarp and fibrous mesocarp. ‘The hazel has a
typical nut with a sheath of succulent bracts at the base; the
beech has three-sided nuts with woody external bracts; the
acorn is a nut with an extra scaly cupule—From Thomson's
“Biology of the Seasons.”
IN.
EDITORIAL
Si
The editor of this magazine has the distinction of being
the founder of no less than five scientific publications, four of
which are still in existence. The oldest, the Fern Bulletin, has
just completed a fifth of a century of uninterrupted publication
and although possessed of sufficient circulation to enable it to
keep up the pace for at least half a century longer, other con-
siderations make it advisable for us to combine it with the
American Botanist to make a single larger and stronger publi-
cation. The first number of the new issue is now before our
readers.
For the benefit of our old subscribers as well as those
who are now transferred from the Fern Bulletin list, we may
say that the present is in no sense a special number designed
to celebrate the combination, but is an example of exactly
what we expect to issue regularly in future. We are confident
that it is now a magazine that every botanist and botanizer
will find worthy of support.
In view of the increased cost of manufacture, we have
decided to advance the price a bit and from this date, the
magazine will be $1.00 a year payable in advance. All special
offers and reduced rates are hereby withdrawn. It is not in-
tended, however, that this advance in price shall affect per-
manent subscribers. These may renew annually as long as
they please at the old rate of 75 cents a year. This privilege
is also extended to any former subscriber of this magazine, or
of the Fern Bulletin, who subscribes before March 31, 1913.
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 37
There is no botanical magazine in the world that offers so much
for so little and we trust that all who have ever been on our
subscription lists will order the new magazine.
* *K Xx
With this issue we begin paying for all contributions
used. The amount at present is not large, but it is at least
a beginning and more than any of the other botanical magazines
pay. Our way has always been to begin on a scale that we
know can be carried through and to increase as circumstances
warrant. For this year, then, we shall offer 25 cents a page,
payable on publication. Less than three-fourths of a page
will not count, though we will pay 25 cents for each item of
half a page or over that can be used in Note and Comment.
We expect all contributors to be subscribers and if they are
not paid for a year in advance when the article appears, they
will be charged for a year’s subscription and the amount
deducted from the amount due. [Illustrated articles are
especially desired, though we shall continue to value brains
above the camera.
A word may also be added as to the kind of articles we
want. First of all they should be short, and they should avoid
the categorical. Contributions consisting of a set of para-
graphs, each of which relates to a different species are, there-
fore, not likely to find favor with us. When you feel the
inclination to write such an article coming on, flee to the back
yard and contemplate the lusty burdock or the pugnacious
Canada thistle. Properly considered either would make a
more acceptable article. Nor is it necessary to roam far afield
for subjects. Attractive articles are largely a matter of close
observation, real thinking and a new viewpoint, and can be
woven around the commonest plant in the vicinity. Think of
the plant that interests you most, set down in good English
the things that attract you and send it in. And forget botanical
38 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
descriptions. Nobody but old Professor Dry-as-dust reads
them, anyhow, and he is not a subscriber to this magazine.
To those into whose hands a sample copy of this number
comes we make the following offer: Upon receipt of 75 cents,
we will send this magazine for one year, beginning with the
next number. This will make five issues for the price of four,
and also entitle you to renew annually at the reduced rate.
This offer will not apply to subscriptions received through sub-
scription agencies, nor to those received in combination with
other magazines, and it _will not hold good after the next
number is printed. If you ever expect to subscribe for this
magazine, now is the time to do it.
BOOKS AND WRITERS
What is an individual? The question at first glance
seems absurd, but after following Julian S. Huxley through
his little book “The Individual in the Animal Kingdom” it
assumes a new significance. The ordinary individual is easily
recognized, but how about such forms as the liver fluke which
in its life cycle has several different and distinct forms? Is
each an individual or part of an individual? Is a sponge an
individual or does individuality reside in the separate cells?
And if an individual comprises all the protoplasm that is
necessary to complete its life cycle, shall the pronuba moth
and the yucca, neither of which can complete its life history
without the other, be called two individuals or one? Lichens,
though composed of an alga and a fungus, are surely indi-
viduals, but if so, are trusts, or the state, in the same category?
The subject is discussed from many angles in the 160 pages of
the book mentioned and is likely to form interesting reading
for the philosophically inclined. The book is published by
G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, at 40 cents, net.
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 39
In “Agricultural Education in the Public Schools,” Prof.
B. M. Davis discusses all the agencies in this country that have
helped to advance the art of agriculture. In addition to such
universally recognized aids as the United States Department of
Agriculture, the State Normal Schools, Agricultural Colleges
and High Schools, he includes boys’ Agricultural Clubs, Agri-
cultural Societies, Educational Publications and Periodical
Literature. The book is not quite a history of the develop-
ment of agriculture in America, nor yet a summary of what
has been done; it is rather an encyclopedia to which the student
can turn for guidance in investigating any phase of the subject.
A bibhography of more than two hundred titles, with notes,
also facilitates this work. Such a book will be specially appre-
ciated by teachers who find themselves in positions where the
teaching of agriculture is among the requirements. It is an
octavo of 170 pages and is published by the University of
Chicago Press at $1.00 net.
“Agronomy; a Course in Practical Gardening for High
Schools” is the title of a new book, by the editor of this maga-
zine, just issued by Ginn & Co. This volume, while it dis-
cusses the principles fundamental to any system of agriculture
is designed especially for schools in cities and towns and takes
up subjects likely to be of most use to an urban population.
The author regards agriculture as being divided into two co-
ordinate branches, agronomy and animal husbandry, and all
discussion of farm animals and their products is therefore
omitted. In its place are several chapters on landscape garden-
ing and the making of lawns, borders and the like. Earler
chapters take up such matters as soils, fertilizers, weeds, till-,
age and the influence of light, warmth and moisture on the
plant, while pruning, spraying, propagation, and plant breeding
receive adequate attention. Each chapter discusses the prin-
ciples involved and is followed by directions for practical work.
Every effort has been made to show the city child how to make
40 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
the best of his surroundings and at the same time to fit him to
take up the more serious work of farming should his situation
make this desirable. The work centers in the school garden
and is planned to cover the spring semester. The book is an
octavo of 300 pages and has nearly 200 illustrations. Owing
to the fact that it deals with all the fundamentals of plant
erowing, it is believed that the book will prove a valuable
garden manual for the general reader.
Books on weeds are much less abundant than the 1m-
portance of the subject would seem to warrant. There is, to —
be sure, a long list of state and government publications on
single weeds and weeds in groups, on how they harm crops
and how to eradicate them, and many kindred subjects, but of
books that deal with the subject in all its phases, there 1s some-
thing of a dearth. A few books of the kind have appeared,
however, and one of the best of these is L. H. Pammel’s
“Weeds of the Farm and Garden” published by the Orange
Judd Company. About half of the 275 pages in the book are
devoted to descriptions of our weeds with notes on their dis-
tribution, abundance, hatitats and uses, if any. In the first
half cf the book, the harmfulness of weeds is discussed, their
means of dispersal described, and the best methods of eradicat-
ing them outlined. In addition to being a thorough guide
to the destruction of weeds, it 1s also a handy manual by means
of which the cultivator can readily identify any new weed that
may make its appearance in his fields.
Vol. 19. No. 2 Whole Number 97
MERICAN
OTANIST
MAY, 1913
25 Gents a Copy: $1.00 a Year (15028 fos
VA NIA tars
. — > ¥ ;
WILLARD N. CLUTE & CO.
JOLIET, ILLINO]
The American Botanist
A Quarterly Journal of Economic & Ecological Botany
WILLARD N. CLUTE, EDITOR
SUBSCRIPTIONS.—The subscription price of this magazine is $1.00 a
year or $1.50 for two years, payable strictly in advance. Personal checks
on small or distant banks must contain ten cents for collection fees. The
magazine is issued on the 20th of February, May, August and November.
BACK NUMBERS.—Volumes 1 to 10 inclusive consists of 6 numbers
each, Vols. 11 to 13 of 5 numbers each and all later volumes of 4 numbers
each. The first 18 volumes may be had for 75 cents a volume, or the set
will be sent for $9.00. A full set contains 2312 pages,
THE FERN BULLETIN
In 1913, at the completion of its twentieth volume, The Fern Bulletin was consoli-
dated with this magazine. The back volumes average more than 100 pages each, and
since they cover the entire formative period of American Fern study they are invaluable
for reference. The majority of new forms discovered in recent years have been
described in its pages. First six volumes out of print. A set of vols. 7 to 20 will be sent
for $7.00. A sample volume, our selection for 40 cents. An extended description of the
contents of the volumes may be had for the asking.
WILLARD N. CLUTE & CO., PUBLISHERS
209 WHITLEY AVENUE, JOLIET, ILL.
ENTERED AS MAIL MATTER OF THE SECOND CLASS AT THE POST OFFICE, JOLIET, ILL.
Odd Numbers « The Aquarium
Reduced Pr ices Official Organ of All the American
Aquarium Societies
While the supply lasts, we will
send six different numbers of The only magazine in America de-
FERN BULLETIN or twelve voted exclusively to the interests of
Mmmnhece ok AMERICAN BOM) the aquarist. Contains articles on the
- breeding and care of native, foreign
ANIST for 25 cents, postpaid. and goldfish, acquatic plants, molluscs
There are no complete volumes and other animals in the aquarium.
in this offer. This is simply a Finely illustrated and printed on the
| to b famili ith best coated paper. Just the publica-
cnance Oo ecome a lilar W ton for the teacher Meee igs
the magazine and to get a quantity Published monthly, except July and
of good reading matter at small August. Subscriptions $1.00. Single
cost. copies ten cents.
Sample volume of either
magazine, our selection, | FLOYD S. YOUNG, TREAS. |
sent for 40 cents. 428 W. 66th St., Chicago
WILLARD N. CLUTE & co. Matter for publicatien should be sent to
JOLIET, ILL. W. A. POYSER, Epitor, Hammond, Ind.
Toe
“AUNW IST Wit'Td
Tue AMERICAN BOTANIST
MOL. XIX JOD i Lewe cM ANS “913 No.2
Ghe golden nurslings of the Way
In splendor strew the spangled green,
Aind hues of tender beauty play,
Gnitangled where the willows lean.
Wark how the rippled currents slow,
What lustres on the meadows lie!
And hark/ the songsters come and go,
And trill between the earth and SKY.
— Stedman.
THE ORIGIN OF THE PLUM ISLAND FLORA
By WILLARD N. CLUTE.
HE Chicago Plain, which extends in a broad belt around
the southern end of Lake Michigan and on which the
city of Chicago is built, is essentially a prairie, though one
which differs in several respects from the ordinary type on
account of its origin and soil characteristics. Originally the
bottom of a shallow lake, and at present raised less than twenty
feet above the level of Lake Michigan, its nearly level surface
is covered with a flora in which prairie plants overwhelmingly
predominate, though many of these belong to the “low prairie”’
association and delight in moist and swampy spots.
The moraine, which forms the western and southern
border of the plain and once held back the waters of glacial
‘Lake Chicago, is well forested, but there are practically no trees
Or shrubs on the plain with the exception of an occasional
42 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
willow or cottonwood on the borders of the marshes or slug-
gish streams. Near the southern margin of the plain, however,
there is a single long, low area of woody vegetation that stands
out so conspicuously from the surrounding region, like an
island of trees and shrubs in a sea of herbaceous prairie species,
as to attract the attention of every botanist who passes that
way. This is known as Plum Island in allusion to the dense
thicket of wild plum that forms the axis of the area.
The occurrence of this group of woody plants in the midst
of a typically prairie flora affords an interesting study of rela-
tionships that exist between two dissimilar but contiguous
floras. It is well known that the plant covering of any region
is more or less unstable. In any plant association there are
likely to be small changes as species succeeds species or one
overwhelms another, but when two such distinct floras as these
meet, the struggle is likely to assume more strenuous lines
since, owing to the nature of the plants, they cannot inter-
mingle and one must tend to displace the other. The question
of how Plum Island came to be, therefore, is one of consider-
able interest and a definite answer should throw an interesting
light on the problem of whether the forest is succeeding the
prairie or the reverse. Is Plum Island increasing in size or is
it being surrounded and driven out by the prairie?
A cursory examination of the region shows that practically
all of the woody species in the island are represented on the
nearby moraine, and a closer study of the individual species
composing it brings out the fact that only eight of the her-
baceous plants in the island are common to the prairie also.
The line between the two floras is thus seen to be sharply
drawn. Of the forty-six species of plants found in the island,
more than two-thirds are plants of the moraine. The woody
species include the black and burr oaks, the black cherry, the
choke cherry, wild plum, wild crab, thorn apple, wild rose,
blackberry, red raspberry, black raspberry, common elder,
MEE AVE RICAN BOLANTST 43
smooth sumac, red dogwood, silky cornel, hazelnut, wild grape,
bittersweet and woodbine and the more conspicuous herbaceous
species are Solomon’s-seal, two species of smilax, two species
of false Solomon’s-seal, mandrake, strawberry, ground cherry,
and two species of nightshade. These varieties form possibly
95% of the individual plants composing the is'and. Inquiring
into their means of dispersal, the significant fact develops that
all bear either berries or nuts and are thus adapted for distri-
bution by birds or mammals. By far the greater number are
avevectant or bird distributed.
Returning now, to the question of which flora is encroach-
ing on the other, it is apparent that if the prairie had assumed
the offensive, we should find more representatives of that flora
in the island. Nor would the forest species be represented so
overwhelmingly by bird distributed forms. We seem forced
to conclude, therefore, that the forest is encroaching on the
prairie. Such encroachment might occur at any point where
the two floras meet, and evidences that Plum Island is increas-
ing its bounds are not wanting, but the establishment of this
isolated area in the prairie makes the problem very clearcut and
points unmistakably to birds as the principal agents in further-
ing the work at this point.
Plum Island is at least thirty years old. The largest tree
in 1t—a black oak—was recently-cut down and showed twenty-
Six Of more annual rings in cross section. There may, of
course, have been other trees before it, but if so, no evidence of
the fact can be found and all the other individuals in the island
are certainly much younger. Reviewing all the conditions we
may, in imagination, recall the series of events that resulted in
the occurrence of this group of plants. A line fence parallels
the long axis of the island and clustered about this are a
number of boulders brought from the adjacent prairie. Doubt-
less in the shelter of these boulders young trees sprang up, their
seeds brought in by small mammals. Protected in some
44 THE AMERICAN BOTANTS®.
measure by their surroundings from the fires that often sweep
the prairie and make it treeless, they continued to grow, illus-
trating very nicely the considerable changes that may come to
a region in response to some slight advantage afforded to
certain plants. As the trees grew large enough to afford rest,
food, or shelter to the birds crossing the plain, the planting
must have proceeded with vigor. Many of the species now in
the island are extremely aggressive when once established and
we may expect to see our island assume much larger propor-
tions in the future if man does not interpose his authority
enforced by the axe and the brush-hook.
THE BITTERROOT
By S. I. ANTHON.
ood of us from the Old World remember with mingled
joy and sadness the storied flowers of our early play-
eround. What a wealth of tales, legends, and bits of informa-
tion about our commoner flowers were the heritage of every
child. Instinctively we learned why the corn-flower was so
blue and how the milkweed sent its children far off to explore
the mighty world. So, too, we learned about the little boy
who loved the two dainty bells of the twinflower so much that
to this day when the gentle breeze flutters among them they nod
their heads, whispering “Linnea, Linnea” in memory. What
Englishman does not love his little daisy the more for its wealth
of association in song and story? What Frenchman does not
square his shoulders at the mere thought of the lilies of France
being borne to victory? How the Irish exalt the humble sham-
rock and ascribe wonderful qualities to it!
Here in this new and cruder land we are so oppressed by
the great amount of cold fact to be learned that we have had
no time or thought to work out beautiful flower tales. We are
even in danger of forgetting that every flower has a story value
as well as a frigidly scientific one, and so we lose a host of
spreading interests. It is in the attempt not to lose it alto-
gether that I have tried to find, among others, the story that
goes with the bitterroot, one of our common western flowers.
The bitterroot is one of those flowers that startle us by
their sudden appearance in the spring. Over all our dry, loose
soil in Eastern Washington, Montana, and Idaho the flowers
46 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
fairly seem to pop out of the ground and burst into bloom.
And their beauty is quite as entrancing as their sudden emerg-
ence. The rock-rose as it is perhaps more. fittingly called,
clearly shows its relation to our garden portulaca in its leaves.
These form an irregular rosette of round, juicy looking fila-
ShAntipsw { A
The Bitterroot—one-half natural size.
ments of a reddish green color with a markedly grainy surface.
Below the leaves lies an irregularly forked root. This has
usually several half-inch thick main branches and then a few
thin fibers coming from these. The roots are brownish black in
color. Each little plant bears a few flowers; flowers so dainty
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 47
and fairylike that it seems an impossibility that they could have
_ arisen from so unpromising a desert. The bud sepals are of a
dull green touched with red, but the open flower is the pink of
our soft sunrises. A loose ring of petals, each petal showing
fine darker lines radiating from the flower center, surround a
host of red stamens which in turn make a complete ring about
the pistil. The whole flower has a saucy airiness of manner
that it is quite impossible to describe.
Entirely apart from the charm and interest of the plant is
the history of its discovery and use. The flower ranges from
British Columbia to Wyoming, having been first collected by
Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis and Clark expedition across
the continent to the Pacific in 1804. He found it on the banks
of the Low Low Fork of the Bitterroot River in Montana. In
his journal Lewis says in describing some of the dried roots—
- “St was of a cylindrical form, hard and brittle. A part of the
‘rind which had not been detached in the preparation was hard
and black, but the rest of the root was perfectly white.”
The Kon-ah, as the Indians call the bitterroot, is particu-
larly abundant in the Bitterroot Valley, which takes its name
from this fact. Because of its beauty and interest it was chosen
by vote of the people as the State flower of Montana. It was
given the name rediviva as the roots will revive after being in
a herbarium for several years. Indeed, it is almost impossible
to obtain a good herbarium specimen as the plant seems to
retain enough vigor to ripen flowers even after being dry and
under a heavy weight. I well remember my own disgust at my
many times repeated efforts to secure an acceptable specimen.
This starchy root is dug by the Indians in spring, the Flat-
heads in particular digging large quantities of it in May, when
it is at its best. After being dried it keeps for years. Lewis
says, “This the Indians informed us was always boiled before
eating ; and on making the experiment we found that it became
perfectly soft, but had a bitter taste which was nauseous to us,
48 THE, AMERICAN, BOTANIS®
though the Indians seemed to like it; for on giving the roots
to them, they were heartily swallowed.”
Upon first hearing of this fact about the root, I spent an
exceedingly hot and laborious hour in my desire to investigate
its palatableness. After covering myself with dust and per- |
spiration I secured enough roots to cook, but while it may be
very nutritious I found it had an exceedingly bitter taste and ie
do not wonder that the white man has never learned to like it.: ..3
NOTES ON THE FERN FLORA OF MICHIGAN
By Epwin D. Hvutt.
HE following notes on Michigan ferns seem worthy of
record inasmuch as they supplement the “Fern Flora of
Michigan” by C. K. Dodge in the Fern Bulletin for January,
1912. The plants were collected while with a class from the
University of Chicago, October 19, 1912, near Sawyer, Berrien
County. Polypodium Vulgare, the common polypody, is re-
ported as being “infrequent in the lower peninsula” but it is
certainly common here in at least one locality, at the summit
of a large dune standing nearest the lake. Prince (Fern
Bulletin 20: 52, 1912) also records this species on sand dunes
in the lower peninsula. Most of the plants were much dwarfed,
averaging about 10 cm. in height, but nearly all were spore-
bearing. The narrow-leaved spleenwort (Asplenium angusti-
folium), not previously reported from this county, was found
in beech woods with the Christmas fern. The latter was rather
common but much less so than its associate. The ternate-
leaved grape fern (Botrychium obliquum) has not previously
been reported from this county. It grew in an open mixed
wood. Several specimens were found but the plant does not
seem to be common. Botrychium obliquum dissectwm also
not previously reported was found with the typical form and
in about the same numbers.
A CURIOUS MULLEIN HABITAT
By Wb Ney INE inj earia.
HE banks of the streams in the vicinity of Joliet are for
the most part formed of a rich black alluvial soil and the
wearing of the meandering current constantly cuts them down
on one side and as steadily builds them up on the other.
Though they are seldom more than a few feet higher than the
surface of the water, the almost perpendicular faces they pre-
sent afford a fertile soil for any plant able to take and occupy
it. Asa matter of fact, the faces change so rapidly under the
wearing of the current that few plants are able to maintain a
root hold, but the situation is one that seems exactly to suit the
common mullein (Verbascum thapsus) whose long tap-root
rapidly penetrates the soil and holds the plant secure against
even ordinary floods. In consequence, the banks cf the streams
a5.0m THE AMERICAN BOTANTSA
wherever cutting by the current is in progress, are ornamented
by a broad border of the gray-green leaves. The fields through
which the streams flow are either cultivated or pastured, and
the mulleins apparently find it hard to maintain an existence in
The long roots of the mullein rapidly penetrate the soil and hold the plant
secure against floods.
them. Along the streams, however, there is practically nothing
to dispute their supremacy. ‘The illustration shows two views
along Hickory creek near New Lenox where the plants are
especially numerous.
NARCISSUS BIFLORUS
By GEORGIA TORREY DRENNAN.
WO peculiarities distinguish Narcissus biflorus from all
other members of the Narcissus family. First, it blooms
in June; never in the spring. All spring-flowering bulbs have
bloomed and passed away before N. biflorus sends up its
flower-stalks. The second peculiarity is that its flowers appear
in pairs; never one, never three or more, but just two, invari-
ably two blooms. They bud and expand simultaneously.
Though not so pronounced, it has another characteristic of its
own, in the odor which is distinctly balsamic. It suggests
bruised balsam leaves or crushed resinous pine needles with an
essence of spice intermingled.
The flowers are cup-and-saucer form. The cup is deep
chrome yellow, the saucer or perianth flake white. The flower
stems are straight, clean and about six inches tall. I have
known N. biflorus since my earliest days, but not by the name
here given. It was one of the components of all gardens of
the old South, and is yet one of the commonest of bulbous
flowers, known as the “June Narcissus.” For some unaccount-
able reason, it either never had a place in catalogues of popular
bulbs, or has been discarded for such a length of time that in no
Eatalosues, either of past date or current, can I find it. - I
wanted to order the bulbs for my city garden, but could not find
a dealer that understood my order. They all substituted N.
poeticus and other well known kinds. I finally sent to the old
plantation and had them dug up from where they had grown
52 THE, AMERICAN? BOLANTS«
and naturalized themselves for so many years that the bulbs
were crowded together in layers. This crowding of starved
and neglected bulbs is the only thing I ever knew to make
N. biflorus barren of blooms.
The plant is one of the hardiest and most prolific of all the
narcissi, multiplying and blooming with unfailing regularity
for years and years with almost no culture. When the roses,
pinks and poppies make the June garden brilliant, this pure
white narcissus adds the charm of sweet simplicity.
Why such an old and deservedly popular flower should
not be known beyond local limits excited my interest and I went
to the Howard Library in New Orleans to *teadeup “the
botanies and find out its history. In old English botanies I
found my flower, under the name I have here given. Narcissus
biflorus or Primrose Peerless, is the way it is specified. The
descriptions are all the same. “Hardy, healthy, free flowering,
twin-flowered, blooming in June, with balsamic odor,” as good
for identification as a thumb print in a criminal case. Why the
English called it Primrose Peerless, | am unable to say.
Mobile, Ala.
THE SPIDER FLOWER
Bye VVibearD. Ne CuumE:
ATURE must have been in a jesting mood when she made
the spider flower. Anyone who views its collection of
sepals, petals and stamens will, of course, recognize it as a
flower, though it is not likely to remind him of any other
flowers of his acquaintance. The long and sprawling stamens,
the petals all on one side, the ovary removed from the rest of
the floral organs by a long stipe, and various other lesser
peculiarities all conspire to make it unique among the inhabi-
tants of our fields and gardens, and therefore of much interest
fomlevers of the curious in plant life. The structure of the
flower also has an interesting bearing on the axiom that.a
flower is a transformed branch. In ordinary flowers the
resemblance is not especially noticeable, but in the spider flower
the different sets of floral organs are separated from one
another by an appreciable interval and are arranged in whorls
at the nodes much as leaves are, therefore the origin of one
from the other is not difficult to imagine. It may be said in
passing, however, that one is not to assume that a flower is
really derived from a branch with leaves. All that is meant is
that the leaves and floral parts have a common origin.
There are various species of spider flower in the West and
South, but probably the most interesting is the one cultivated
in gardens under the name of Cleome pungens, though I believe
the botanists, speaking strictly by the book, would call our
Species Cleome spinosa. The seedsmen, however, rarely pay
much attention to the whims of the botanist and the plant will
54 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
doubtless continue to be listed under the old and well known
name. Cleome pungens, then, is a plant of tropical America
but it thrives in gardens as far north as Canada and from mid-
summer till frost displays in profusion its large rose-purple or
white flowers. These open about sunset and last until a new
set opens the following day.
The opening of the flower, however, is no such rapid pro-
cess as may be witnessed in many species, the evening primrose
for example, where the petals and sepals may be seen to spread
open with a snap at the proper moment. In fact, the opening
may be said to be a matter of several days’ duration. The
The flower suggests a spider.
petals early outgrow the sepals, but before they are unfurled
the impatient stamens have begun to back out of their embrace
and the curved filaments projecting from the bud may be con-
spicuous for a day or more before the flower is fully spread.
The stamens always push out on the under side of the flower,
being guided in this direction by the arrangement of the petals
which, though, set in a circle on the receptacle, nevertheless have
slightly more space between the two on the lower side. Coinci-
dent with the opening of the petals a large drop of nectar
Easily RING AN = Ome ANS T 55
appears between the two upper stamens, being produced by a
glandular tissue there. At first the petals stand nearly erect,
as in our figure, but as the flower grows older they gradually
sink downward until they take a position nearly in a semi-
circle on the upper side of the flower. By this time the stamens
have spread stiffly outward, three on each side, and thus give
the blossom a not very distant resemblance to a gigantic spider
or to that creature familiar to children as “daddy-long-legs,”
though it is likely that neither of these animals would consider
themselves in style with only six legs.
The arrangement of the parts of the flower indicates that
in its native land it is pollinated by large insects and the further
fact that the flowers open at sunset seems to imply that these
visitors are night-flying moths. In our northern gardens,
however, it is largely visited by butterflies and bees and the
seedsmen often recommend it as an excellent honey plant.
Whatever its visitors, it seldom fails to be pollinated. The
flowers are odorless but the bruised foliage has a rank and
heavy scent. In the West, an allted species is called skunk-
weed because of its odor, and for a similar reason the little
Polamisia, a member of the same family, from northeastern
America, has the specific name graveolens.
The family to which the spider flowers belongs is known
as the Capparidaceae. Its best known representative is prob-
ably the caper tree from which comes a condiment much prized
byumercic;, Lhe family is closely related to the great cress
family. In both, the flowers have four sepals, four petals, six
stamens and a single ovary composed of two carpels, but the
fact that the stamens are all of the same length in the caper-
worts together with other minor differences is considered suf-
ficient to ever keep the families apart.
THE SLENDER CLIFF-BRAKE
HE fern collector who finds the slender cliff-brake in his
locality may consider himself fortunate. The species is
not one of those elusive ones that occur sparingly here and
there and are therefore likely to be overlooked; it often grows
in great abundance where it occurs at all but it is not found in
every place that appears suited to it, and in short, it 1s one of
those plants which the botanist writes down as local without
being able to discover what it is in the soil, surroundings, or
plant predilections that makes it so.
It is the general impression that this plant is always associ-
ated with limestone rocks, but recently it has been reported
several times on sandstones and more rarely on shales. Possibly
one of the reasons it seems to prefer limestones is because such
rocks are not only more likely to afford perennial supplies of
moisture but they also provide the little ledges and shelves of
rock on which the fern delights to grow. Many, perhaps the
majority of plants that grow on cliffs, are true xerophytes and
can get along with the minimum amount of water, but the cliff-
brake is a mesophyte and is seldom found far from abundant
moisture. If one hopes to find it in his locality he should search
all the dripping ledges of limestone.
Although the cliff-brake is one of the smallest and most
delicate of our ferns, it elects to grow in the colder parts of the
world and encircles the earth north of the parallel of 40 degrees,
North Latitude. Its farthest southern stations are in northern
Pennsylvania, Illinois and Iowa but in all these States it is
extremely rare. Nearer the Pole, however, it often completely
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
“_
Or
covers the shaded ledges. It is very impatient of both sunshine
and drouth. Cutting down the sheltering trees in its habitat
is usually sufficient to cause it to disappear. In the event of
drouth it simply casts its leaves and waits for another growing
season. In dry summers it is difficult to find the fern after
mid-July and even in years of more moisture it is probably the
first of the ferns to disappear.
Little ledges and shelves of rock on which the fern delights to grow.
When found, the cliff-brake is easily recognized. There
are no other ferns with fronds so delicate that grow in such a
habitat. A further distinguishing mark is found in the two
kinds of fronds, the sterile being much broader and shorter
than the fertile though the latter are less than six inches long.
The indusium under which the sporangia mature, is broad and
thin and is formed from the margin of the frond. Some idea
of the size of the plant may be gained from our illustration
where the two round white spots near the right margin of the
picture are a silver quarter and a penny.
SPRING FLOWERS OF PRAIRIE WOODS
T is probable that nowhere are wildflowers more abundant
than in a prairie region. Many people imagine that the
warmth and light of the Tropics must make that part of the
world especially favored in the matter of bloom, but this is a
mistake. It is true there are a great many beautitul and
showy flowers in the Tropics, but they are swallowed up and
lost or obscured by the all-pervading green. Flowers are most
One must tread on flowers at every step.
noticeable, or possibly most abundant, in regions where the con-
ditions for vegetation are less favorable—on mountain tops, in
alpine valleys, on sand barrens, in the Arctic regions and in sim-
ilar places. It may be doubted, however, if the prairie must yield
to any of these. Nor are the forests that border the prairies
Ee SAVE REC ANB © ANTS. 59
less favored. As evidence we give a view from a vernal wood
in the vicinity of Joliet where the ground is so nearly covered
with flowers that it is literally true that one must tread on
flowers at every step in passing through it. The flowers that
make up this drift of blossoms are spring beauties, Dutchman’s
breeches, trilliums, violets and anemones. Later the same wood
will be as thickly spread with phlox, collinsia, polemoniums,
and the like, and these will in turn give way to several other
groups before asters, goldenrods, and eupatoriums close the
season,
ABNORMAL FRUITS OF JUGLANS REGIA
By J. A. NIEUWLANDS.
1° the December (1912) number of Torreya, there is a notice
with drawing of a tricarpellary English Walnut, together
with the theory that this is a reversion to a primitive type.
Concerning the nature of the reversion in this particular case
of teratology, we do not presume to express an opinion beyond
this, that we do not see that it is necessary to explain such
causes by the supposition that they are reversions to primitive
conditions.
Though we have not made it a special point to search for
abnormal “fruits” of Juglans regia, we may say that we have
found such specimens as the one described and drawn, to be
quite common. The fruit in question consists of three equally
large carpel leaves and the same number of false partitions.
We have, moreover, found two other abnormal fruits quite as
interesting as the one referred to, both within a week of each
other. These I have sent to the editor of this magazine and we
have dissected only the more complex of the two. The first of
these fruits is composed of three carpels. One of these is the
size of the normal one in all walnuts, that is, a perfect half
60 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
shell; the other two carpels are each but one-half the size of
such. As to the internal structure, we have not investigated
further.
The other walnut is made up of four distinct carpels all of
about equal size and every one with a more or less notable
false partition reaching inward and dividing the embryo coty-
ledons into eight more or less imperfect divisions. The embryo
itself, at the radical end, has the shape of a four-sided pyramid.
As already noted, we need not suppose that all abnormal fruits
are to be interpreted as reversions to primitive or atavistic
types. Years ago, we found a “fruit” of a member of the same
family, Hicoria alba, the common hickory nut, that had four
carpels or a double nut with a perfect partition between two
perfectly normal healthy seeds. This condition would possibly
have to be interpreted as a reversion to a still more primitive
type. It seems quite satisfactory to consider all these as just
abnormal conditions for which we need not rack our brains to
find an explanation with very much hope of profit.
Notre Dame, Ind.
[In addition to what has been said above about abnormal
fruits in the Juglandaceae, we may add that we have in our
possession double fruits-of both the black walnut (Juglans
nigra) and the butternut (/Juglans cinera). In these there are
two perfectly formed seeds enclosed in a single husk. We also
have a black walnut with three cotyledons. ‘This latter speci-
men seems 1n no way very different from seeds of other kinds
which occasionally produce seedlings with three cotyledons.
In certain cases DeVries was able to breed a race of tricoty-
ledons from such beginnings.—ED. ]
AN ORNAMENTAL GARDEN PLANT
By VWiEtArD. No GLuTE:
iP every well-appointed garden, there is sure to be a clump
of chives in some out-of-the-way corner, for no cook
worthy of the name would forego the added piquancy which
the tender green leaves of this plant add to the salads and
stews of early spring. But not to the taste, alone, does this o'd-
fashioned and long-domesticated little plant appeal. Almost as
soon as the snow: is gone, certainly as soon as the ground is
thawed, the innumerable slender green spears begin to push up,
making lively splotches of color on the brown earth and
prophesying spring long before the daffodil dares, to say
nothing of the swallow.
Again in late May or early June the plants assume a new
attractiveness when the clumps put forth large numbers of
slender stems tipped with globular tufts of rosy-lilac blossoms.
All who view it then are of the opinion that it is much too
pretty to be considered a mere vegetable fit only to be eaten,
and not a few, prompted by this feeling, have moved it into the
society of choicer spirits whose main claim to consideration is
the possession of beauty. In many situations it is an ornament
to the flower garden. It is a clean, trim, compact, little plant
with a good natured air about it that goes far to make one for-
get its plebeian origin.
Chives still grow wild in the colder parts of both Europe
and America. On this side of the world the plant extends
southward to the Great Lakes and the mountains of northern
62 THE AMERICAN, BOLANIS®
New England. The American plant is regarded as slightly
different from that of Europe and it is sometimes called the
variety Sibiricum. The species is known as Allium schoenopra-
sum and it is probable that our cultivated plant has been derived
from this. Unlike most plants belonging to the onion alliance
Stems tipped with globular tufts of rosy lilac blossoms.
the bulbs are never large and are seldom eaten. ‘The leaves,
however, are highly valued and little clumps of this plant form
one of the staples of the green-grocer in spring. For a few
cents one may get sufficient plants to start a good-sized border
and owing to the rapidity with which they multiply he will
soon have plenty for his neighbors.
GOLDIE’S SHIELD FERN
By ADELLA PRESCOTT.
HE first sight I had of Goldie’s shield fern (Nephrodium
Goldicanm) filled me with envy and despair—envy be-
cause it grew by the house of a stranger and despair because it
was so beautiful that I thought it must be rare and rare things
do not often come my way. I watched it for weeks with long-
ing eyes but having the set of the little finger which palmists
say indicates a lack of push, I got no nearer than the sidewalk
until the family went away for a vacation and closed the house.
Then I trespassed boldly, examined the fern often, and when
the sori appeared it was easily identifed. Later I found some
fine specimens growing with their best-loved friend, the
narrow-leaved spleenwort, in a near-by wood.
Of all our native ferns, I think Goldie’s is easily the most
beautiful if one excepts the royal fern and his other favorites!
It is large enough to be stately, but it is never coarse as our
other large ferns are likely to be. Whether growing singly
or in clumps, it is always graceful, while its peculiar coloring
gives it an added charm. It is one of our tallest ferns, often
reaching three feet in height, while an extra fine specimen may
add several inches more to its stature and the ovate fronds may
be ten or twelve inches wide. They are nearly twice pinnate
and the coloring is very noticeable, especially in the young
fronds, being a deep blue-green at the center shading lighter
at the edges and tips of the pinnules.
The fern grows from a creeping rootstalk but the fronds
often are so close together as to suggest a crown. The fertile
64 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
fronds are like the sterile, and the large sori are borne in a
double row near the midvein. It has a wide distribution, being
found from Canada southward to Tennessee, but it is often
absent where it might be expected and is never as common as
many of its kin. It takes kindly to cultivation and is a joy for-
ever wherever grown.
New Hartford, N. Y.
LABELS AND LABELLING
N the old days, the gardener, after sowing his seeds, set up
a small stick at the end of the row and placing the empty
seed packet upon it considered that his work was done. In
modern gardening, however, such careless methods are not to
be tolerated. In many cases, especially where seeds of several
varieties of a single species are planted, or where different
forms of one species are grown together, it is important that
a permanent and legible label be provided.
A considerable variety of labels are offered by dealers in
seeds and nursery stock but all are not equally valuable. For
temporary purposes such as marking the position of annuals,
that kind called a pot label is as good as any. Such labels range
in length from six to twenty inches and in width from half
an inch to an inch or more, and they may be painted or plain.
The objection to the smaller sizes of pot labels for permanent
marks is that they easily become splashed with mud and there-
fore illegible after the spring rains. By the use of taller labels
one avoids this trouble, but these latter labels are rather
expensive and also rather too conspicuous to be desirable. A
more satisfactory permanent marker may be made from a tree
label, such. as many nurserymen use in labelling trees and
shrubs sent to customers, and a piece of number ten or twelve
galvanized iron wire about two feet long. One end of the
wire is bent into a small loop as shown in the illustration and
the tree label is fastened to the loop. The straight end of the
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 65
wire is thrust into the ground and the label thus held aloft
remains legible for many years, especially if painted.
A good painted label is much superior to the unpainted
kind, but such a label is hard to find, nowadays. The ingenious
Yankees who make them, instead of giving them a good coat
of paint, have taken to dipping them in a thin decoction of oil
and color which makes them look as if painted though they do
not give the same results. It is often advisable to get the un-
painted labels and paint them at home to be sure of satisfactory
work. In this case it is well to use good white paint, not too
thick. If properly painted the marks of a common lead pencil
will remain legible for six or seven years
at least. For marking all permanent
plants, the label we have described is one
of the best to be had. Among other good
kinds recommended, one is a strip of thin
copper upon which the name is written or
printed with a hard stylus. This makes
an impression in the copper that is legible
for years. Unfortunately the cost of such
labels is much higher than for the wooden
ones more commonly chosen. Strips of
zinc are also often used. A name written
in pencil on zinc will last a long time.
These labels, however, like the tree labels,
have to be raised above the soil in some manner, at least for
herbaceous plants, and since they do not ordinarily last much
longer than the wooden labels, have little to recommend them.
In writing labels, it is customary to write the different
words composing the name on different lines to avoid confusion
when the words begin to be illegible. The first word begins at
the upper end of the label, near the outer edge and the next
word is written below and a little further to the right. Pot
labels stuck in the soil should always face away from the seeds
66 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
they mark and in any considerable planting the rows should
always be so arranged that the owner knows at which end the
planting begins. Under these conditions, when several differ-
ent plants occur in a single row, it will be easy to discover to
which lot a given label refers.
NEW ZEALAND FERN NAMED
N the Fern Bulletin for July, 1912, there was published a
drawing of an unfamiliar fern frond which could not be
named for want of fruiting material. To our request for
its name, there was no reply from this side of the world,
but Prof. A. Gepp of the British Museum, London, has
kindly identified the plant. The fern is Platyzoma muicro-
phylla or, if you prefer, Gleichenia platyzoma. Judging
from the appearance of the sterile fronds alone, the editor
guessed that it might be a fellaca or Chetlanthes, but it
turns out to be only distantly related to those ferns; indeed, it
does not belong to the same division of the fern family, being
one of the Gleicheniaceae, a group coordinate with the Poly-
podiaceae to which the majority of ferns belong. The plant
was originally described as the type of the genus Platyzoma but
it has since been shown to be doubtfully distinct from Gleichenia
and modern botanists now put it in that genus. The original
specific name was microphylla, which is certainly descriptive
enough, but when placed in Gleichenia it is often called G. platy-
zoma. According to such authorities as we have at hand, the
fern is found only in Australia. The Fern Bulletin record for
South Keppel Island, New Zealand, may therefore be an exten-
sion of range.
ee NN
COMMENT 5
Tue ANCIENT Arctic FLtora.—Most people are familiar
with the fact that coal is found at many places in both the
Arctic and Antarctic regions which would seem to indicate
pretty clearly that at some earlier period the climate in such
regions was much milder than at present, since coal is formed
of the remains of plants and plants cannot thrive in these ice-
bound regions at present. Some geologists have attempted to
show that the plants which formed this coal did not grow in
the region but were carried to their present resting place by
some large river or by ocean currents. This theory seems
utterly untenable, however, for in many places the fossil coal
plants are still rooted in the mud as in life. Many of the plants
are so well preserved that the genus, and even the species, can
be determined. Among the plant remains found in Spitzbergen
are included species of redwood, cypress, maple, poplar, willow,
alder, birch, hornbeam, hazel, beech, oak, elm, plane, magnolia,
basswood, walnut, hickoy and ash, as well as many herbaceous
plants.
FERN BULLETIN IN THE ARGENTINE.—Of the thirty-one
complete sets of the Fern Bulletin known to exist, three are
owned outside of the United States. Until recently we have
been unable to locate the single set owned in South America,
owing to the fact that it was purchased through a German
agent, but a note from Dr. Cristobel M. Hicken, Professor of
Botany in the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, apprises
us of the fact that the set is preserved in Dr. Hicken’s private
natural history museum, “Darwinion.” The museum is one of
68 TEE) WA Mille Roi@ AN, 3 @ ae ASN Sab
the foremost in South America and contains a large number of
herbarium specimens representing nearly 35,000 distinct spe-
cies. Ferns are one of Dr. Hicken’s specialties and are unusu-
ally well represented. Several illustrations of the museum ap-
pear in the August, 1912, number of Physis a natural history
publication printed in Spanish.
WHITE SASSAFRAS.—Every country boy knows the sassa-
fras and apparently some country boys know the plant better
than the botanists do; at least, in some parts of our country,
they have made a distinction between two forms of this plant
which the botanists have rarely recognized. The more common
form is sometimes called red sassafras and is the one bearing
the scientific name Sassafras varufolim or S. officinalis, The
less familiar form is known as white sassatras and has recently
been listed in our flora as S. varufoliwm var. albidum. ‘The
white sassafras is a more glaucous plant than the common form
and the roots are reported to possess more of the pungent pro-
perty so characteristic of this species. It is\ said’ that) the
mountaineers of the Carolinas have always recognized the dif-
ference and invariably select the white form when digging the
roots for the well known spring tonic, sassafras tea. Nuttall
regarded this plant as a separate species, but it 1s now believed
to be a mere form of the common sassafras.
V1oLA PEDATA AND ITS VARIETY.—The bird-foot violet
(Viola pedata), 1s a common and well-known inhabitant of
sandy or sterile areas from the Mississippi valley to the Atlantic
Coast. In part of its range it presents two- forms, the more
common one having all the petals colored lavender or lilac
purple and the other having the two upper petals deep purple
and the remaining petals nearly white. By some twist in the
nomenclature of the species, or some obliquity in the nomen-
claturists themselves, the rare form is known as l, pedata and
the common one as lV. pedata var. lineariloba. The new Gray’s
Manual makes this distinction but Britton does not notice it.
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 69
The range of the species is given as from Southern New Eng-
land to Maryland while the so-called form extends west to the
Minnesota. Recently the species, that is, the one with two-
colored flowers, has been reported from northern [llinois and
one may be pardoned for thinking that the occurrence is due to
some external influence, rather than to a fundamental or in-
herited characteristic. Certainly if Britton’s Manual does not
make it a species, its claim to even varietal rank must rest on
no very solid basis. Those who encounter these plants this
spring would do well to keep watch for both forms,
KRASCHENINNIKOWIA MAXIMOWICZIANA. — The _ non-
botanical are wont to observe that the scientific names of plants
are “fearfully and wonderfully made” and the name which
stands as the title of this paragraph goes far to substantiate °
the statement. It also serves to illustrate the lack of perception
in the typical scientist. Who, except the scientific man, too
deeply engrossed in his work to see the humor of the situation,
could give a pretty and delicate plant such an uncouth name as
this? However, it is possible that in carping at this name we
may be following the example of the ignorant who are prone
to smile at unfamiliar words. Were we Russians the name of
the plant might sound at least as smooth as Pipersmithit,
Nationalparkensis and a few others of equal mellifluousness
put over on this side of the world. Krascheninmkowia Maxi-
mowicsiana is a small herb belonging to the pink family and by
many is known simply as Stellaria bulbosa. A Russian named
Turezinow made the diabolical genus name under which the
plant is now placed, but a Frenchman is responsible for the
tongue-tangling specific name. Fortunately for us, the plant
is a Japanese species and we may let our little brown brothers
worry over the pronunciation of the scientific cognomen. It
probably sounds a good deal like it would look printed in
Japanese characters.
70 THE AMERICAN BOLANISA:
Books ON THE Ir1s.—The publication of the article on the
iris in the February number of this magazine has brought out
several requests for further information regarding this inter-
esting group of plants. The literature, however, does not seem
to be abundant. The matter relating to the irises in gardening
books has reference largely to those species that are commonly
cultivated and about which the beginner is likely to be already
informed. The only book dealing exclusively with irises is
Irwin Lynch’s admirable “Book of the Iris’ which costs a
dollar. C..S. Harrison, York, Nebr., has issued a 30-page
“Tris Manual” which deals with the cultivation of these plants
and though much less extensive than Lynch’s volume will be
very useful to beginners. It costs 25 cents.
LimitinG Factor In Soirs.—Only ten chemical elements
are said to be indispensable to plants. All the sugars, starches,
vegetable oils and wood fibres in the world are made from three
of these, namely carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. They are
literally “made of wind and water”’ for the necessary elements
are derived from the air and the moisture in the soil. The other
elements are needed for building up more complex substances,
including protoplasm the living matter of the cell. Some are
needed to perfect seeds, others in changing energy into useful
work and still others to neutralize harmful acids in the plant.
This accounts for the fact that plants that are depended on to
supply the substances mentioned above, must have more than
the three elements to work with and a single missing element
sometimes makes a great difference in the size of the crop.
Most soils are easily depleted of several of the chemical ele-
ments needed by plants. This is the reason why farmers and
gardeners spend so much thought on methods of enriching the
soil. Usually the element least abundant is nitrogen but
potassium and phosphorus are frequently as scarce. In some
experiments made at the University of Illinois it was found that
wheat fields yielding only about six bushels of wheat to the acre
Et ANE RICAN BOTANIST 71
were short of phosphorus, and when this was applied the yield
at once jumped to twenty-three bushels—nearly four times as
much. It is thus seen that the absence of a single needed ele-
ment may have an exceedingly important effect on the crop, and
those who own land would do well to ascertain what their fields
lack to produce their maximum yield.
CoNOPHOLIS AMERICANA.—In reference to the distribu-
tion of Conopholis Americana, squaw-root, mentioned in the
August (1912) number of the American Botanist, page 77, |
can say that in about 30 years of more or less tramping to hunt
plants within 100 miles of Port Huron, St. Clair County, Mich-
igan, I saw it but once—in shade near an old pine stump—until
1908 when it was noticed in abundance on Stony Island in
Saginaw Bay, a part of Huron county, Michigan, There it was
in thick woods of beech, maple, elm and ash.—C. K. Dodge,
Port Huron, Mich.
Conopholis is certainly rare in Rhode Island. In my fifty
odd years herborizing, I never saw it within our state limits.
Here (Touisset, Mass.), it was found last year and this, in
the same spot in a mixed wood of beeches, ironwood, oaks and
ash, in a soft mush of old leaves. Aphyllon uniflorwm is com-
mon both sides of the line, which is half a mile from my house.
—Dr. WV. W. Bailey.
CoLor CHANGES IN RupBECKIA.—The common black-
eyed Susan (Rudbeckia lurta) is greatly prone to vary. Ata
recent meeting of the American Association for the Advance-
mem: of science, Dr. W. J. Beal exhibited a dozen or more
striking variations in the flowers which he had selected from
wild plants of this species and no doubt any student with access
to a considerable number of these plants in flower could do as
well. One of the variations most frequently found is that in
which the normally yellow rays are marked near their bases
with a band of brown. Occasionally this circle of brown
extends to or beyond the middle of the rays, after the manner
~
Cas)
THE AMERICAN BOTANIS®T
of the flower heads in the nearly allied Rudbeckia speciosa bi-
color. The brown in the rays of R. hirta, however, does not
seem to be very firmly fixed, for upon transplanting such speci-
mens to the garden they frequently, if not always, return to the
normal color. Specimens transplanted by the writer of these
lines acted thus, and the same thing was recently reported in
Rhodora. The writer, however, was able to secure consider-
able seed from the abnormal specimens and now has a hundred
or more plants from the seed, which will be watched at the
blooming season next year, in expectation of seeing the brown
color reappear.
THE SCIENTIST AND THE Novice.—In an experience of
some twenty-two years of editing scientific magazines, I have
been more and more impressed by the fact that the greater the
man the more willing he is to help those who are not so great.
I have found that when I want to know the answer to even the
simplest question it is best to send that question to the biggest
expert in that particular line of thought that there is in the
country, or perhaps in the world. Then 1] amecune toeet
not only an authoritative but. a kindly and prompt answer.
Several times I have thought when a question comes to my
desk, one, for example, pertaining to dentistry, that I would
send it to a local dentist, or a legal query to a local lawyer, or
perhaps some point of natural science to a local teacher who
should have access to many books. But such an action almost
invariably proves to be a mistake. Several times has come
the reply, “I am too busy in my work to answer your ques-
tions,” and not infrequently “This question is too simple for
me to take time to answer. You ought to send it to someone
more interested in elementary work than I am.” But not
once in almost a quarter of a century of experienceshave J
been refused, or repulsed, or delayed by any really: eneat
authority. I now send such questions, simple as they are, to
the most learned men and women in the land or to the ‘most
DHE AMERICAN BOTANIST
~
LY
accomplished specialists. Surely the missionary spirit goes
with greatness and accompanies profound learning. The well
informed man is sure and speaks according:y. The man who
refers me to an elementary text-book has himself need of
further information.—Edward F. Bigelow in Guide to Nature.
STRUCTURE OF THE FRuitT.—A fruit, regarded structurally,
is the part of the flower that persists after pollination has beer
effected, that is to say, after the possible seeds have become reai
seeds. In most cases the fruit may be described as the ripe
seed-boxes, or as a collection of ripe seed-boxes, with or with-
out extra parts such as the fleshy top of the flowerstalk or a
persistent calyx. In many cases, as in common cereals where
a single seed fills the seed-box, fruit and seeds are practically
identical, though the theoretical difference remains clear. In
order to understand the different kinds of fruits, which repre-
sent solutions of a very difficult problem, we must also notice
that the wall of the fruit (the pericarp) often consists of several
layers very different from one another. Thus in the familiar
case of the plum there is the firm outside skin (epicarp) which
keeps bacteria and moulds out until it gets even a slight wound;
there is the fleshy pulp (mesocarp), which is all loss to the
parent plant, but attracts the birds which scatter the seeds; and
tiene is the very hard “stone” (endocarp), which effectively
preserves the seed within—a living embryo—from_ being
digested in the bird’s food canal, from being frostbitten in the
ground, from premature germination and from other risks.—
From Thomson's “Biology of the Seasons.”
Late BLooMiInG LuPINE.—It is interesting to record the
fact that the common Lupine (Lupinus perennis) of the dune
region of northern Indiana, like some of our violets, occasion-
ally blossoms in the fall. On September 1, 1912, I found a
specimen in bloom near Hammond, Indiana. Whether the
plant was blooming for the second time or had just come into
flower for the first, I was unable to ascertain. This particular
74 THE AMERICAN B@a. AiNmisas
specimen is also interesting on account of abnormalities in the
inflorescence. At the top of the exceptionally long raceme,
there were three buds and one flower and at the base, three pods
about half mature. Between these two extremes a distance of
15 cm., there were neither flowers nor pods, nor had any fallen
off.—Edwin D. Hull, Chicago.
THE Larcest CHRYSANTHEMUM.—In view of the rapid
progress that plant breeders are making in increasing the size
of flowers and fruits, it would be difficult to set a limit beyond
which we were willing to certify that a given species could not
go. Of course, the greatest improvement has, beemamade sim
common vegetables and the flowers usually kept 1n stock by the
florist but in none is the increase more marvelous than in the
chrysanthemum. Everyone is familiar with those large globu-
lar flower-heads made by removing all the flower buds but the
terminal one and throwing all the strength of the plant into
this, but it may surprise some to learn just how Jaree the
largest of these may become. According to Horticulture, a
French amateur recently won a prize of twenty dollars with a
chrysanthemum that measured more than sixty-four inches
around it. This is many times the size of the original flower-
head and suggests great possibilities when the same methods
come to be applied to tomatoes, cherries, and the like.
LINEAGE OF WALNUT AND HicKory.—The walnuts and
hickories are characteristic members of the tree flora in North
Temperate latitudes and, though they are usually regarded as
rather primitive types, they have held their own against various
newcomers for a very long time; in fact, the family line is
supposed to go back some millions of years and evidence of it
has been found in the mid-cretaceous. Several of our well-
known species have also been found fossil, among them the
pecan, the shagbark, the bitter nut and the water hickory. In
earlier days the hickories were much more widely distributed
than at present and were found throughout central and north-
PAE ANE RICAN BO LANIS TL 75
ern Europe and even extended to Greenland and Spitzbergen.
There are now no members of this group indigenous to Europe
and it is believed that all the European species perished during
amewice age. Whe walnuts, which are own cousins te the
hickories, were spread even farther, and extended from Alaska
across North America, Europe and Asia to Japan. This group
was more fortunate than the hickories and many escaped exter-
mination during the glacial period. Today representatives are
still found in Japan and the Mediterranean region as well as in
America. ‘The walnuts and hickories seem never to have
Spread very far into the tropics but the Juglandaceae, the
family to which they belong, is represented there by several
small genera. In prehistoric times these spread north with
their allies even to Greenland but at present they are decidedly
tropical. Curiously enough, these tropical species lack the very
characteristic fruits of our species. Instead of hard-shelled
nuts, they have light winged fruits modified for distribution by
memwind. Nhe tropical Juglandaceae belong to the genera
Pterocarya, Platycarpa, Engelhardtia and Oreomunna.
UNE
EDITORIAL
Ji__
We are often adjured by sentimentalists to “love the lily
and leave it on its stalk” but it is hard to make such an idea go
down with the urchin who reasons that to leave the flower on
its stalk is only to provide temptation for some other individual
and it therefore becomes his duty to remove both flower and
temptation at once. Everywhere in the vicinity of cities, the
showy wildflowers are sure to be harvested and the unselfish
individual who refrains from picking them may possibly be
buoyed up by the thought that by so doing he has given some-
body else the pleasure he might have had, but such thoughts are
not likely to bring much comfort to the average flower gatherer.
The stubborn fact which is bound to obtrude itself into any
discussion of this subject is that so long as there is no law
expressly prohibiting the picking of flowers, it does little good
for a few people to agree not to pick them. Instead, therefore,
of teaching children not to pick flowers at all, it would be far
better to emphasize the fact that a bouquet cannot be valued
merely by its size, that a few flowers in a vase look better than
a large number and that a judicious selection of the best blooms
indicates taste and judgment and results in a bouquet that
will long outlast one picked without discrimination. If children
could be taught to select flowers with care they would leave
those that were past their prime and in consequence a much
larger number would be left to go to seed. One of the chief
dangers that threaten the wildflowers is due to the idea that 1f
a few flowers are good a larger number must be better. Adults
as well as children often pick more flowers than they can use
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
~
~
because they wish to see how many they can get. It is counted
some sort of misdemeanor to find a patch of flowers and not
take all that are in bloom. If the flower protectionists really
wish to save the wildflowers let them discourage such indis-
criminate picking.
It was our intention to end the 75 cent subscription rate
with the February number, but owing to the fact that the edi-
tion was exhausted before we had covered the territory we had
planned to cover, we have decided to extend the offer to July
Ist. We have printed an increased number of this 1ssue which
we shall mail to former subscribers of this magazine and the
Fern Bulletin. lf this paragraph is marked it is an indication
that we will send the magazine one year, beginning with the
next number, for 75 cents. This will also entitle the subscriber
to renew at this rate as long as he cares to do so. Now is the
time to subscribe!
When we sent the February number of this magazine to
press we had a suspicion that it was a pretty good number and
accordingly ordered an edition one-third larger than usual,
but before the middle of March the supply of samples was ex-
hausted and we have been obliged to hold all subsequent app!i-
cations for the present number. We regret that we were unable
to supply all but we trust that this number will be as satis-
factory. We can still begin a few subscriptions with the Febru-
ary number but those who wish to begin then should lose no
time in ordering.
Since a large number of subscriptions to the American
Botanist end with’this number, we again call attention to our
list of permanent subscribers. The permanent subscribers are
those among our friends who have more than a passing interest
in the magazine and who do not regard subscribing to it as an
78 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
~
annual affair. They order the magazine sent until ordered
stopped and pay for it each year when most convenient. More-
over, as befits those who are the special supporters of the maga-
zine, they pay less than the rate for transient subscriptions. Our
rate to permanent subscribers is 75 cents a year. Any sub-
scriber to this magazine may become a permanent subscriber
by requesting us to place his name on that list. No subscriber
is transferred without express orders to that effect, but we
earnestly request others to transfer. A blank form for the pur-
pose will be found in this issue.
BOOKS AND WRITERS
The teaching of agriculture in secondary schools is spread-
ing rapidly and it is evident that the book makers do not intend
that teachers shall neglect the subject for want of a sufficient
number of volumes from which to select. One of the latest to
appear is Milo N. Wood’s “School Agriculture,” a book of over
300 pages which discusses both the cultivation of the soil and
the breeding of animals. The beginning chapters are devoted
to the formation, constituents and classes of soils and are fol-
lowed by chapters on planting, pruning, propagating and kin-
dred matters. The book ends with a discussion of stock and
farm implements. Each of the thirty-nine chapters ends with
directions for practical experiments which cannot fail to be of
much value to both pupil and teacher. There are also upwards
of 200 illustrations, some of which are in color. The book is
issued by the Orange Judd Co., New York, at 90 cents net.
According to the title page, “Applied Biology” by M. A.
and A. N. Bigelow is an elementary textbook in biology,
though a glance through its pages shows it to be the old com-
bination of botany, zoology and human physiology bound in a
single cover.. The reviewer fails to see how botany in juxta-
position to zoology becomes biology and is inclined to consider
the association a mere mechanical mixture and not a chemical
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 79
combination. As a source of much light upon biological prob-
‘lems, however, the book is bound to be of great value. The
authors have a clear and original style that is sure to attract
the pupil and have included in the text much information relat-
ing to animals and plants that other authors have overlooked.
-The book is especially full regarding the economic relations of
the forms discussed and ought to prove of interest to the
general reader. It contains 275 pages and is published by the
Macmillan Co., New York, at $1.40 net.
The scientific names of plants, terrifying though they may
be to the uninitiated, are seldom regarded with much awe even
by the beginner, though he may possibly wonder what they are
all about. As his studies progress, he eventually recognizes
the meanings of the commoner terms, but it 1s only the unusual
student that ever masters all the technical terms applied to
plants. Those who have not the time to trace out the meanings
of the terms in Latin and Greek dictionaries, will welcome a
new “Dictionary of Botanical Terms’? compiled by George
Frederick Zimmer and issued by E. P. Dutton & Co., New
York. In this little book are some seven thousand names
applied to plants with their meanings translated. In endeavor-
ing to make a book that even the beginner may understand, the
author has frequently given rather free translations, which in
some cases seem to be a bit wide of the mark, but if they do not
exactly define, they are not likely to confuse, and all who
delight to delve into the meaning of plant names will find this
an interesting aid. The price is $1.00 net.
' Ever since man ceased to be a savage, he has mixed with
his food a considerable number of plants that in themselves
have little food value, but which have been regarded highly for
the flavor and added palatableness which they give to more
important foods. An account of these plants has recently ap-
peared in book form under the title of “Culinary Herbs” bv
‘M. G. Kains, Associate Editor of the American A griculturist.
80 THE AMERICAN) BODA NSA
The bulk of the book is made up of descriptions of the plants,
their uses and the methods of cultivating and preparing them,
but this 1s preceded by fifty pages devoted to general matters
pertaining to the group as a whole. The author is inclined to
agree with the French who say that the Americans are “people
of one sauce.” It 1s probably true that we use fewer plants for
flavoring than Old World people. The average housewife's
knowledge of such things seldom extends far beyond sage,
parsley, summer savory, and mint, though the author shows
that there are many more as easily obtained that are capable of
giving entirely new flavors to our food, especially to cheap cuts
and left-overs. The book has numerous illustrations and is
written in a bright and lively style that ought to do much
toward popularizing the plants described. It is published by
the Orange Judd Co., New York.. Price 75 cents met
Except for the fact that George W. Hunter’s “Essentials
of Biology” is not really a volume on biology but is instead
three volumes on botany, zoology, and human physiology
bound in one, very little fault can be found with it by those who
like that kind of a book. Botany comes first in the arrange-
ment with the time-honored sequence of topics reversed to the
extent that flowers, fruits, and seeds come before a study of
leaves, stems, and roots. ‘Then follow chapters on morphology
and ecology after which zoology and physiology are taken up.
The book is apparently intended as a source of material for
recitations though the topics are presented as a series of prob-
lems which the student is supposed to investigate in the labora-
tory before discussing in the class-room. ‘The book is well
written and profusely illustrated and ought to serve the pur-
poses of schools in which the two branches of biology are not
recognized as separate sciences. It is published by the Amer-
ican Book Co. Atle Oe
OAS
Vol. 19. No. 3 | Whole Number 98
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A Quarterly Journal of Economic G Ecological Botany
WILLARD N. CLUTE, EDITOR
SUBSCRIPTIONS.—The subscription price of this magazine is $1.00 a
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BACK NUMBERS.—Volumes 1 to 10 inclusive consists of 6 numbers
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THE FERN BULLETIN
In 1913, at the completion of its twentieth volume, The Fern Bulletin was consoli-
dated with this magazine. The back volumes average more than 100 pages each, and
since they cover the entire formative period of American Fern study they are invaluable
for reference. The majority of new forms discovered in recent years have been
described in its pages. First six volumes out of print. A set of vols. 7 to 20 will be sent
for $7.00. A sample volume, our selection for 40 cents. An extended description of the
contents of the volumes may be had for the asking.
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Sample volume of either
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The Aquarium
Official Organ of All the American
Aquarium Societies
The only magazine in America de-
voted exclusively to the interests of
the aquarist. Contains articles on the
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and goldfish, acquatic plants, molluscs
and other animals in the aquarium.
Finely illustrated and printed on the
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narags rey
LAA ge AS TE ALS SA AA AT, RRP PRT 8 NE SS NB ap ER A a a EE: ti te Na he Mi OE Ni yk CPT bg I 0 RP eR le
The Surprise Lily—Calochortus Macrocarpus.
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
VOL. XIX FOE E Ihy, AUGUST, 1913 No. 3
Jind nearer to the river's trembling edge
Ghere grew broad flag Hlowers, purple prankt with white,
And starry riverbuds among the sedge,
And Hloating water lilies, broad and bright,
Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge
With moonlit beams of thetr own light;
Jind bullrushes and reeds of such deep green
As soothed the dazzled eye with somber sheen.
-—Shelley.
THE SURPRISE LILY
By Sor ANTHON.
STRANGER coming in sight of our western sagebrush
plains is at once startled and dismayed by the dreary ex-
panse of the dull-colored dusty sagebrush which, gnarled and
twisted by its ceaseless conflict with the elements, looks as
though it were as old as the universe. But on closer ac-
quaintance one learns to like the sagebrush and to go through
it with an exhilarating feeling that any new botanical dis-
covery is possible in that enchanted region. For the dreary
waste conceals myriads of beautiful and interesting flowers,
flowers altogether different from those of other regions and
so dainty that it seems impossible that they could come from
so unpromising a soil. Among these are the nodding mission-
bells (Fritellaria pudica), the rock-violet (V. trinervata),
the sage-pink (Phlox longifolia), and the gay crimson and
orange cacti. But perhaps the most interesting of all is the
82 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
one the children know as the surprise
lily (Calochortus macrocarpus).
The flower is well named, for no
matter how thoroughly convinced you
may be that it is concealed in a par-
ticular sweep of sagebrush, when you
come across it you are startled anew
by its gentle dignity and poise. Most
of our sagebrush flowers bloom in the
early spring; this one waits until late
May or June when all other flowers
have been literally scorched away and
the ground is baked hard. The sur-
prise lily is then at its best, and one
may gather great armfuls of the
beautiful lavender flower.
Bud of Surprise Lily.
The flower belongs to the same group as the mariposa
lily, and the group has been particularly well named Calochor-
tus. [he word comes from the Greek words kalos and chortos,
meaning beautiful grass. The group was so called because
the leaves are always reed-like and when it is in bloom it is
indeed a beautiful grass-like plant. The species name, of
course, comes from the fact that the seed carpels are unusually
large, frequently being over three inches long.
The flower was first collected by Douglas, the Scotch
botanist, who was sent out by the London Horticultural
Society. In his first journey in 1825 he exploned@ much ‘ot
Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. He found the surprise lily,
as he says, ‘on the dry barren grounds around the Great Falls
of the Columbia and on the summit of the low hills between
them and the Grand Rapids.” It is coextensive with the sage-
brush, which corresponds agriculturally with the region where
the growing of peaches and watermelons is practicable,
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 83
The plant is a perennial, with large coated bulbs which
are usually sunk about six inches below the surface of the
ground. The leaves are linear-lanceolate, varying in num,
ber but clasping the stem and drying up soon. ‘The sepals,
three in number, are lanceolate; at first greenish but later
fading to lavender about the edges. The petals vary in color,
usually being a delicate lavender but one may sometimes find
flowers of a clear pink. The petals are much wider than the
sepals and are curiously marked by a triangular glandular pit
mear the base. They are also hairy part way. ‘There are six
stamens and a three-angled ovary. ‘The fruit is septicidal,
containing numerous seeds which partly explains the many
plants one sees in the barren grounds of the northwest. It
also spreads by means of a bulblet situated on the stem, gen-
erally a few inches below the surface of the ground.
sieyGoots penetrate far mto the soil in search of the
precious water. You frequently find the flower itself reaching up
through a gnarled mass of sagebrush, but in average height
it seldom ranges over two feet. It seems to have a conscious
pride in its unique position and holds itself proudly erect.
It is unusually pretty and deserves a place in our gardens
among the later spring bulbs, as each flower measures nearly
two inches across and there are sometimes as many as six on
@estem 2. cluster of surprise lilies in a rockery would be
worth traveling far to see.
PENTSTEMON GRANDIFLORUS
By fH Puresen:
N southwestern South Dakota the large-flowered beard-
tongue (Pentstemon grandifiorus) blooms for a short time
in spring and early summer. There are several other species of
Pentstemon that are in flower at this time, but,as the name would
suggest, grandiflorus is the most conspicuous of all, though, in
my opinion, hardly the most attractive. On the Pine Ridge
Indian Reservation, a tract 100 by 60 miles in area, I saw this
species along but one creek valley, Medicine Root, though P. A.
Rydberg found it at Hermosa, in the Black Hills region.
Where I observed it, it was growing in the Rosebud silt loam,
a calcareous soil. Unlike most of the other Pentstemons found
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 85
in that district, it cannot withstand the dry winds of the upland
plains and hills, and occurs in patches, which are, as a rule,
protected from rough weather by thickets and banks. The
species does not flourish among the trees, however. No doubt,
the moister prairies of the upper Mississippi suit it very well.
Its restricted distribution where I found it is very likely due
to its adaptation to sheltered and well-watered spots. Rydberg
mentions it as one of the plants that have migrated up the
streams of the Black Hills country.
My notes, made several years ago, contain no allusion to
its odor and my recollection is that there is none that is notice-
able. The color of the corolla is lavender-blue. The plant
has very much the aspect of a cultivated form, with its large,
showy flowers and its thickish, cordate-clasping leaves. In the
locality where I found its colonies, no other plant appeared to
dispute its occupancy of the ground. Wald roses of more than
one species are in bloom at the same time with our Pentstemon,
and one kind is shown in the picture.
Among the contemporaries of Pentstemon are Ruibes
aureum and R. foridum, which grows close to the water’s edge,
while Erysimum conceals, with abundant yellow, the old field-
sites that the Indians have given back to Nature. On the
heights at this time are blooming the red false-mallow (Mal-
vastrum coccineum), Calochortus, milk-vetches (Astragalus),
Psoralea, and numberless others.
“The beautiful is as useful as the useful,’ and the one
use which I have known this Pentstemon to subserve is shown
in the illustration.
THE DAY LILIES
By Witrarp N. Crum
T is rare that every species in a genus possesses sufficient
beauty to merit a place in the flower garden, but in the
case of the plants belonging to the genus Hemerocallis there
can be no mistake about it. There are only about half a
dozen species in the group, to be sure, but all have handsome
flowers and attractive foliage that make them equal in beauty
to the true lilies, though they lack the range’ of colemim these
latter plants. They have, however, a hardiness of constitution
and an adaptability of character that should go a long way
toward making them prime favorites with all who cultivate
flowers.
Though the flowers are shaped like lilies, they are not
true lilies, according to the botanist, for they grow from root-
stocks with numerous thickened roots, instead of from bulbs
as the true lilies do. The generic name, Hemerocallis, keeps
on the safe side by meaning merely day beauty or beautiful by
day, which the flowers certainly are, and some species are
beautiful by night as well. Nor must our plants be con-
fused with another group of so-called day lilies with broad
rounded leaves. The latter are more properly called plantain
lilies and belong to the genus Funkia. The true day lilies
have narrow grasslike leaves quite different from those of
related plants.
The day lilies are all natives of the Old World. The
center of distribution is in eastern Asia from whence one
THE AVMERICAN BODTANIST 87
or two species have worked into northern Europe. The ma-
jority, however, are found in Japan. The commonest species
in America is the tawny day lily (Hemerocallis fulva). It is
frequently found in cultivation but more often may be seen
along roadsides in the vicinity of old gardens from which
fends either escaped or been ejected. It is extremely hardy
and persists in spite of the native vegetation, even making
All have handsome flowers and attractive foliage.
headway against it and spreading into nearby fields. It ap-
pears to have been a favorite plant with the early settlers and
is often found marking the site of some ancient dwelling long
after the house has crumbled into ruins and the gardens and
lawns have been overrun by wild nature. It is likely that its
very thriftiness has been its own undoing in the garden for it
sometimes is a bit more common and vigorous than is desir-
8s . THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
able for the good of the other plants. Like many another it
has not learned of the sin of being common. This plant is
often miscalled tiger lily, though it has not much resemblance
to the real tiger lily, the latter having upright leafy stems
with black bulblets in the leaf axils. A double variety of our
plant is know as the variety Kwanso and the plant itself is
sometimes sent out under the name of Hemerocallis distichum.
The flowers are large and produced in abundance.
Though the very commonness of the tawny day lily
operates to make it less desirable in the flower garden than
any of its allies, it 1s still worthy of a place in some out of
the way corner if only for the cheerful way in which it accepts
any conditions of life that may be imposed upon it. Its
flowers are scarcely as pleasing as are those of other members
of the group, being of the color usually described as brick red,
but they are large and produced in abundance at a time of the
year when large flowers of any kind are scarce—points in
its favor which are not to be ignored when planning the
flower garden.
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 89
The day lilies, however, should not be judged by their
tawny-flowered congener. All the others are regarded as
being much handsomer, though in most cases the flowers are
somewhat smaller. One of the finest is the copper lily (A.
Dumortiert) which is first to bloom in spring and has fragrant
flowers of a clear, deep, coppery yellow. ‘The earliest flowers
appear late in May and new ones continue to appear during
mocteor June. This plant is frequently offered by dealers
under the names of Hf. rutilans and H. Sicboldi and the novice
should keep this in mind to avoid duplication in his buying.
The pale copper lily (H. Middendorfit) should not be con-
fused with this species. It blooms about the same time and
might, at first glance, be taken for a paler variety of it though
the whole plant, and especially the flowers, are larger. ‘lhe
underground parts, however, may be relied on to distinguish
it. In the copper lily some of the roots become thickened and
tuberlike, but in Middendorfi they do not. Both these plants
are very desirable for the garden.
fincre are three species in this group that are called
lemon lilies. The one to which the title seems rightfully to
belong, Hemerocallis flava, is the earliest to bloom, its first
flowers appearing soon after those of the copper lily have
opened. It is the species oftenest seen in gardens and has
flowers of medium size and clear lemon yellow in color. The
late lemon lly (H. Thunbergu.) would be easily mistaken for
it 1f its blossoms appeared at the same time, but they rarely
open until after the last of the lemon lily’s bells have closed.
The first ones appear early in July and the plant remains in
bloom throughout the month. It is considerably taller than
the lemon lily and has the peculiar habit, for a day lily, of
first opening its flowers in the early evening. The flowers are
slightly fragrant. The lesser lemon lily (H. minor) is seldom
seem im cultivation though, since it is a native of Siberia, it
should prove hardy in most parts of the United States. Its
90 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
name of lesser lemon lily refers more particularly to the
leaves, which are quite slender and grasslike. This also ac-
counts for its frequently being listed as Hemerocallis gramini-
fola and H. gramimnea. The flowers are pale yellow. In
recent catalogues still another species is listed as H. citrina.
This 1s said to come from China and to have pale sulphur-
yellow flowers which are fragrant with the odor of citron.
It blooms in July. Its introduction is so recent that very little
seems to be known about it.
The last of the genus is the orange day hly (4. auranti-
acum) which blooms-in July and August. Its flowers are a
pleasing shade of deep orange-yellow and are delightfully
fragrant. It is reputed to be not quite hardy in some parts of
our country but a longer trial is needed to settle this point.
It has a variety, major, which is larger in every way than the
type, and several hybrids between this and other species are
known, most of them said to be hardier than the type.
The day lilies are rather fond of the sunlight if the soil
is moist but they are generally a rugged lot and) tite in
almost any soil. In deep shade they do not produce as many
flowers as they otherwise would. Whe tallep species are
valued for planting con the borders of ponds and water gar-
dens. Most nurservymen can supply the different species, the
price being about fifteen cents each. Those who have not
made the acquaintance of the rarer species have a treat still in
store tor themy
PLANTS OF THE SOUTH DAKOTA
SAND HILLS
By Pror. S. S. VISHER.
ERY few realize that the Nebraska sandhill formation
reaches into the Pine Ridge Reservation of south-central
South Dakota. Since no botanist had collected in the South
Dakcta sandhills it was believed that a considerable number
of species could be added to the flora of the State by a study
of that region and in consequence I visited the area for the
State Geological and Biological Survey in August, 1911, and
added about fifty species to the State flora.
Sandhills as seen from the distance are not inviting; they
appear as a low line of similar yellow hills, or, 1f one can look
down from a divide, as we first did, a complex of irregularly
arranged dunes with here and there the glimmer of a tiny pond.
The brightness of a patch of freshly exposed sand, or the dark-
ness of a marsh filled with vegetation alone break the monot-
onous drab of sand and shrub. As the hills are approached small
“ranches” are noticed just this side of the line of frontier dunes
and cattle may be seen wandering about nearby.
It is only when one gets within the dune district, and sees
the variety of the vegetation that the reason for the reputation
that sandhill districts have among botanists and picnickers be-
comes evident. One quickly notes the striking difference be-
tween the almost level, dry clay plains covered with its carpet of
short “buffalo grass’ and the rough sandhills with their tall
clumps of “bunch grass,’ many fruiting shrubs and narrow
92 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
valleys filled with dense thickets through which ripple clear,
cold brooks. Though the sand 1s fertile, fields are likely to
drift badly. Pastures are in ill repute, because of their tendency
to blow; and while small meadows occur, the roads are so
heavy that it does not pay to haul hay far. Perhaps it is the
impression of irredeemable wildness that gives the sandhills
part of their attractiveness,
The many differences between the adjacent grassy plains
and the sandhills seem to be entirely due to the sand. In eleva-
tion there is no notable difference; it is not likely that there is
any more precipitation; it is readily apparent that the sandhills
in general are no cooler. If this area receives no more rainfall,
and is not cooler whence come the increased vegetation, the
bountiful springs and the fresh ponds?
The sand, being loose and porous, absorbs at once all rain-
fall. Even during a heavy shower no water runs off on the
surface. For a short time after rain the evaporation is very
rapid, more rapid than water can be supplied from below by
capillary action. Consequently the capillary tubes become
broken and evaporation stops long before any considerable
amount of the recent precipitation has disappeared. The bal-
ance escapes slowly from the leaves of the vegetation and from
the many voluminous springs which supply the brooks that
drain the region.
As might be expected the air temperatures become very
high especially in the blowouts during sunny days. This super-
heated air rises to join the general wind and as a result the
winds blowing across the sandhills are exceedingly drying and
the vegetation must either because of an abundant supply of
available moisture, be able to endure rapid evaporation or it
must be able to resist drying by possessing restrictions against
evaporation. Both types are found. The bunch grass, roses,
bush morning glory, sunflower, and thistle are examples of the
former; the cacti, sand cherry, yucca. and prairies pink ane
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 93
examples of the latter. A number of the characteristic plants
have much longer tap roots than do even nearly related species
which are to be found in the harder subsoil of the steppe; a few
including the cacti, bush morning glory and psoralia have
organs for storage.
If it were not for the permanent streams with their fringe
of marsh-loving herbs and of chokecherry, plums, buffalo berry
and Juneberry bushes, all more or less overrun with wild grape
vines, the sandhills would not be so popular; though on account
of the large, juicy (even if somewhat bitter ) sand-cherries alone
they would be visited by the Indians and settlers. The choke-
cherries are the largest and most desirable of all that I have
ever seen. In some seasons the raspberries too are plentiful.
The predominant species are perhaps the following: The
bunch grass (Andropogon scoparwus) is dominant. The sand
grass (Calomovilfa longifolia) and the spear or needle grass
(Stipa comata) are common. Andropogon Halli is occasion-
ally abundant on the upper slopes and the tops of the ridges.
Grasses growing between the bunch grasses are hair grass
(Lrogrostis trichodes), Indian millet (Oryzopsis cuspidata),
Black Grama (Bouteloua /irsuta) and the sand-burr grasses
(Cenchrus tribuloides and C. carolimanus). The shrubs of the
sandhills are Sand-cherry (Prunus Besseyt), Chokecherry
(Prunus melanocarpa), the plum (Prunus americana), Spanish
bayonets (Yucca glauca), bush morning-glory ([pomocea lepto-
phylla), poison ivy (Rhus Rydbergu), Dogwood (Cornus
stolonifera riparia), prairie willow (Salix humilis), lead plant
(Amorpha canescens), buffaloberry (Lepargyraca argentea),.
wild rose (Rosa Arkansana and suffulta). The most common
trees are the hackberry (Celtis Americana), elm (Ulnus fulva)
and the cottonwood (Populus Sargenti) and even these are
few and small.
The most conspicuous of the herbs are perhaps the annual
eriogonum, the Prickly Poppy (Argemone intermedia), the
94 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
sand spurge (Croton Texenis), the showy gilia (Gila longi-
flora), tle green milk-weed, three members om tmesCaper
family, (Cleome serrulata, Cristatella Jamesu, and Polanisia
trachysperma). Legumes are frequent; Lupinus pusillus,
Petalostemon villosa and the narrow leaved Psoraleas are per-
haps the most numerous. The two most general composites are
the wormwood (Artemisia dracunculoides ) and the viscid aster
(Machaeranthera sessiliflora). In the shade of the willow
thickets are to be found a number of additional herbs among
which may be mentioned the western night-shade (Solanum
interior), wallflower (Erysimum cheiranthoides) and Alhonia
nyctaginea. ‘The borders of the brooks are quite gay with
flowers. Among the brightest are the monkey flower (Minulus
Geyert), Thoroughwort (Eupatorum Brunert), St. John’s wort
(Hypericum majus), the willow herbs (Epilobium lineare and
FE. adenocaulon), the touch-me-not (/mpatiens biflora), the
Marsh-elder (/va axillaris), the bur-marigolds (Bidens glau-
cescens and B. tricopermum tenuilobata) and perhaps the gay-
est of all Gerardia paupercula.
THE MOONWORT
By ADELLA PRESCOTT.
T is one of the delightful things about going a-ierning that
while you. may fail to find the special thing you are
looking for, you often find something better, It was when [
was looking for the adder’s-tongue that I found the moon-
wort. I! was visiting in the northern part of Oneida County,
N. Y., late in June, and the young son of my hostess was
anxious to have me visit a nearby ravine where he said “all
kinds’ of ferns grew. From his description I anticipated
finding only the common ferns and we did find them in won-
derful luxuriance and great variety
many of the wood ferns,
all of the osmundas, the tall spleenworts, dicksonia and others,
but it was when crossing the mossy old pasture at one side
of the ravine that I made my great discovery, a discovery that
seemed to my youthful guide quite out of proportion to the
excitement it produced, for even the most enthusiastic botanist
would hardly call the moonwort beautiful.
@he field seemed to me a likely place to look for the
adder’s-tongue and, stooping to scan the ground more care-
fully, lo, at my very feet, was a tiny moonwort. It was very
small and somewhat imperfect owing to late and heavy frosts,
but I had read its description and studied its outlines too often
to be deceived and a further search disclosed several more.
Most of them were very small and few were perfect, but a
few were five or six inches in height with a well developed
fertile division, some of them having a few sori on the sterile
division as well,
The moonwort (Botrychium lunaria) is a northern spe-
cies and is not found south of New York and Connecticut.
96 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
,’ s0-a novice who was
“just scraping an acquaintance with nature” might surely be
excused for displaying considerable enthusiasm even 1f the
plant itself is not very attractive to the unknowing eye. Like
other Botrychiums, it bears but one frond annually, divided
after the fashion of its kind into a fertile and sterile portion.
It is so fat that, like other grape ferns, it makes no attempt to
Even (Gray pronounces) it “rare
A moonwort with fertile and
sterile pinnae mixed.
coil after the characteristic manner of fern crosterss merely
bending its head a little as a concession to the custom of the
family. The blade is borne near the middle of the stem and
is usually pinnate having from two to eight pairs of fan-
shaped pinnae suggesting in shape the half moon. The fertile
division is about the same length as the sterile and twice or
thrice pinnate. As im other grape ferns; the jomdironmness
year is enclosed in the base of the stipe.
Tae AVERT CANE BOLANITST 97
This plant is found in many parts of the world and is
senciaered local rather than rare’ in England. In the Old
World it was supposed to have magic power and to work many
“wonders, such as drawing the nails from the shoes of the newly-
shod steed, the loosing of fetters, locks, etc., but an old writer
says, It is all but false suggestion and meere lyes,”’ an opinion
in which I heartily concur.
OUR NATIVE AQUILEGIA
By Bessie I. Putnam.
HILE the mammoth yellow columbine of the Rockies
commands the attention from florists which its stately
form deserves, its more humble yet equally deserving cousin
of our Eastern hillsides, Aquilegia Canadensis, is likely to be-
come extinct locally from its native slopes without being given
the right to existence in the well regulated garden.
In form and outline it is infinitely more graceful than
most of the exotic varieties, the slender stems and airy form
being especially pleasing. The colors, blending from a coral
red to a honey yellow in the same blossom, are a unique com-
bination as unusual in the floral world as it is charming. The
plant is usually in bloom for Memorial Day, a fact which com-
mends it to all who are interested in the observation of this
day.
It is hardy, easily grown from seed or by transplanting,
and it may even be transplanted when in bloom without detri-
ment to the plant. While its natural habitat is the hilly way-
side, it readily adapts itself to ordinary garden culture in
either sun or shade, easily maintaining its own through root
growth, and furnishing enough seed each year to allow as
great an increase as is desired. Those growing the garden
columbines will find this, the only native Aquilegia east of the
Mississippi, a most charming addition to the collection; while
as a feature in our wooded parks, its value should not be
overlooked.
TRANSIENT BOTANIZING
By Dr: W. W. BAe
NE may sometimes do some pleasant botanizing from the
windows of a railway car. It is my belief, however,
that some inexorable fate compels the train to hurry just at
those points where the observer’s curiosity is heightened by the
sight of some conspicuous flower, ill-determined by the rapid
passage. Often have I longed for even a five minutes stop to
allow me to ascertain what orchid, perhaps, was offering its
splendid tribute for admiration.
For several summers I have been impressed by the Wee-
hawken meadows, gay with flowers as the fabled fields of Enna.
The West Shore Railway carries one through these and he
has views of the long acres of purple loosestrife (Lythrum
salicaria). This becomes still more abundant in Rockland and
Orange counties, New York. The splendid carpet of lavender
is enriched by frequent ravishing glimpses of tufts of rose mal-
low (Hibiscus moscheutos) stirely one of the most superb of
our native flowers. How cool and inviting are its pavilions of
pink, satin-like material into which some troubador bee, gay
with black and yellow velvet, plunges for his siesta.
After all, despite our teaching to the contrary, big flowers
are most enticing. For instance, in these same swamps one sees
great trumpets of pink and white bind weed, or splendid, single
white roses. Pie deddes
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 139
frequently appears in the most unexpected places. I recollect
being frantically called over the telephone by one of my friends
who, knowing my hobby, insisted on my coming over at once
to see her chrysanthemums which were full of thin yellow
worms! I chuckled to myself as I hurried over for I thought
I recognized the ubiquitous dodder in her yellow worms. It
was a rather shame-faced gardener to whom I explained the
identity of the worms, but it is always a surprise to find the
number of people who are ignorant of even our common
plants. The dodders are not particular as to their host; they
grow commonly on our clovers and alfalfa but I have fre-
quently seen huge masses of it coiling about a dry and gnarled
sagebrush to absorb from it its scanty supply of nourishment
and water,
—
THE GRAY OR SPANISH MOSS
By Mrs. GEorcIA TORREY DRENNAN.
HE gray moss (Tuillandsia usnoides) grows from the Dis-
mal Swamp south to the Gulf of Mexico, in all heavily
timbered low lands. In some respects it is a weird feature of
vegetation and at all times, it is quite picturesque. Composed
of gray, scurfy, thread-like branching stems with linear awl-
shaped leaves, it depends in long, full, swaying draperies from
the spreading limbs of trees, feeding upon the moist air of the
swamps. The small sessile green flowers are produced in
summer and the ripened ovary forms a narrow, three-valved
pod filled with club shaped, hairy-stalked seeds.
Though not a parasite, it yet attaches itself to the spreading
limbs of trees, and makes profuse growth. Its principal
affinity is the live oak. Magnolia grandificra, cypress, cedar,
and pine in close juxtaposition to the live oak, will be sparsely
covered while the oak will be heavily draped. As it hangs
from the gigantic trees, the gray moss is filmy and apparently
140 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
as soft as smoke, but taken in the hand it is harsh and wiry.
The new growth, lengthening the moss, floats lightly on the
air, lovely to behold. Season by season, it increases in bulk
and length, and a tree supporting its first colony of light, thin
moss one year, will the next year be densely covered. Yet
the trees do not suffer. They do not part with sustenance.
The air and moisture support the moss.
Time was when the Spanish moss had no commercial
value, but now the demand for what is known as vegetable hair
is extensive and is yearly increasing. It is used in mattresses,
saddles, upholstery, horse collars and other manufactures.
The gray epidermis is removed by a sweating process in vats,
located in the forest where the moss is pulled from the trees.
When removed from the vats and dried, the black inner fibre,
a vegetable hair, is strong, wiry and clean. The shipments
from the South to all parts of the United States are immense
while the local consumption is considerable.
The moss is called the lazy man’s crop. It has neither to
be sown nor worked; simply harvested and, in the local phrase,
“cured” for commerce. Notwithstanding its annual con-
sumption, there is no perceptible diminution in the supply.
A NATURAL TREE GRAFT
HE essential thing in grafting is that the growing cells,
or cambium, of stock and scion shall meet in order that
further growth may form a firm union between the two. It oc-
casionally happens in nature that one branch rubbing over
another exposes their respective cambiums and then under fav-
orable circumstances a similar union may result. The accom-
panying illustration shows an instance of this kind that has
occurred among the branches of an ancient live oak (Quercus
agrifolia) on the Pacific Coast. The tree is growing on the
Providencia Ranch near the Los Angeles river a short distance
from Hollywood, and the photograph was kindly sent by Mr.
Fred E. Burlew.
NOTE and COMMENT
Si NU
FAMILIAR SHRUBS FROM THE WILD.—Every garden
plant that differs from wild plants of the same kind has
reached its perfection in one of three ways: it may have been
improved by selection, it may have been crossed with other
forms, or it originated in the wild as a “sport.” The sports
have a peculiar interest for us from the fact that they represent
Nature’s attempts at improving things. For ages she has been
encouraging plants to throw off these variations from the nor-
mal. If by chance they are able to survive we have a new
variety or species, but usually such variations are swamped
by the multitudes of the.common form. When man cares to
protect these unusual plants they are often found to be quite
superior to the type. The double-flowered crab, often called
Bechtel’s crab, is an instance of this kind: Ii issasport from
Pyrus [oensis which was taken from the wild by Thomas
Bechtel near Staunton, Ill., about 1888. The shrubs from
which the specimens came had been known for nearly fifty
years before anybody had thought it worth while to secure
and propagate so desirable a form. The weeping mulberry
was found in 1893 by J. C. Teas among a lot of seedlings im
his nursery at Carthage, Mo. ‘The cultivated fomumor tne
common hydrangea, Hydrangea arborescens sterilis, was found
about 1892 by J. A. Shafer near Pittsbure, Pas lnealis roam
the flowers are all enlarged and sterile. Several other hydran-
geas with this peculiarity are known. The cut-leaved form of
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 143
the staghorn sumac (/thus typhinia laciniata) was found many
years ago at York Beach, Me., by J. W. Manning and all the
cut-leaved plants seem to have descended from this single spe-
cimen. Many different cut-leaved elders are known. One of
milewtatest £0 be found was discovered by J. H. Ferriss at
eramved Kock, Ill., about ten years ago. This is a form of the
red-berried elder (Sambucus racemosa), but similar forms of
the common elder and of the European elder (S. nigra) are
known. The familiar “golden glow” is a sport of Rudbeckia
lacimiata which originated on the prairie somewhere in the
vicinity of Chicago about 1894. It was introduced to the
pupite by Jens Jensen and C. W. Eagan. All of the finds
mentioned have considerable commercial value and there are
no doubt many quite as desirable waiting for some discerning
collector to discover them.
GRASSES AS WeEeEDS.— The quack grass (Agropyrum
repens) probably fills every requirement in the farmer’s defini-
tion of a weed, but there are three annual species which are
fully as annoying to the gardener. ‘These are the foxtail
(Setaria), the crab grass (Panicum sanguinale), and the witch
grass (Panicum capillare) . The efficient way in which these
weeds conduct their annual campaign against the cultivated
vegetables and flowers seems little short of intelligent. They
do not come up early in spring to be cut down by the watchful
gardener 1n the full swing of his spring enthusiasm for outdoor
exercise; instead they wait so long before appearing that the
novice may be deceived into thinking that he has vanquished
them. But when the summer sun has baked the ground and the
moisture has evaporated to the point where cultivated things
begin to wilt at noonday, they appear, fresh, green and thrifty.
They luxuriate in soil that is almost dust dry and their. ability
to get along with the minimum amount of moisture goes far
toward making them invincible. How they manage to exist
is more or less of a mystery. In all probability they have an
144 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
exceedingly high osmotic pressure in their cells which enables
them to extract moisture from such unfavorable surroundings.
A Gicantic Cone.—To those who are familiar with the
fiuits of the Gymnosperms, the great cones of some of the
western pines, which often measure more than a foot in length,
may seem gigantic but these are by no means the limit of what
Nature can do in the matter of cones. Dr. C. J. Chamberlain,
who has recently returned from a tour of the world, made for
the purpose of studying the Cycads, reports that the cones of
Encephalartos caffer, a species of South Africa, has cones that
sometimes reach a weight of ninety pounds. This is the
heaviest cone produced by a Gymnosperm. An allied species,
Macrozamia Denisont, from Queensland, Australia, has a cone
that often weighs seventy pounds and is more than three feet
long. The individual seeds in such a cone are large enough to
be made into match boxes. ‘The cones, as most people are
aware, are really ripened fruits, the young cones being in fact
the pistillate lowers, Their size ought to make them prime
favorites with the botanist who so often in studying other
flowers must make use of a lens or microscope. In these plants,
all the floral parts are constructed on a generous plan. Even
the sperm cells, which unite with the eggs, are large enough
to be seen with the unaided eye and have the added peculiarity
of being ciliated like those of the lower orders of plant life.
THE FRAGRANCE OF PLANTs.—Flowers either have to be
curious, beautiful or fragrant to gain a place in the garden.
Lacking these qualities the gardener is likely to call them
weeds. The fragrance of plants does not always reside in the
flowers, though we usually think of the flowers when we think
of fragrant plants. The fragrance may proceed from almost
any pait of the plant. In the lavender, thyme, and the mint
family generally, the odor is found in the leaves and stems,
in the cinnamon tree the odor is in the bark of the trunks and
branches; in the sasafras in the bark of the root; in the sandal-
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 145
wood and camphor tree it is in the wood; in the iris, ginger
and sweet flag it is the rootstock; in the vanilla, anise, and
caraway, it 1s the fruit; in the nutmeg and tonka bean it is in
the seed; and in mace it is the aril surrounding the seed. In
some species, different parts of the plant have different odors;
thus the orange yields one kind of perfume from its leaves,
another from its flowers and still another from its fruits. In
the sasafras and sweet flag the leaves have a taste and smell
quite different from the taste and smell of other parts of the
plant.
A Bu.sous EpipHytE.—Epiphytes are plants which grow
upon others without depending upon them for food. In tem-
perate regions, many mosses, lichens and a few ferns are
epiphytes, but it is not until the tropics are reached that we
find flowering plants of this nature. In the tropical rain forest,
however, there are numerous flowering plants that have become
epiphytes, notably the orchids, the pitcher plants, and the
plants of the pineapple family. The position of these plants on
the trunks and branches of trees, prevents their absorbing water
as needed, as plants rooted in the soil are able to do, and they
are, therefore, obliged to keep pretty close to regions where the
rainfall is frequent and abundant. As a rule the epiphytes
possess cisterns or other devices for storing the precious moist-
ure against a time of drouth. In a country where it is always
summer there is no need for plants to store food and, as might
be inferred, plants with bulbs, corms, or thickened rootstocks
are exceedingly rare among epiphytes. A few species have
bulbous parts, usually stems, but these are for the storage of
water, not food. A remarkable exception to this condition is
found in a new plant reported from South Africa in which
there is a bulb of the conventional style. The plant belongs
to the Amaryllidaceae and has been named Cyrtanthus
epiphyticus. It is said to be the first Amaryllidaceous plant
recorded as an epiphyte. The plant grows with its bulb em-
146 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
bedded in the moss on the trunks and branches of a species of
yellow wood (Podocarpus). |
FLOWERING PLANT Forms.—The true flowering plants
divide naturally into the two groups of Monocotyledons and
Dicotyledons, the separation depending upon whether they have
one or two seed leaves, The dicots comprise by far the larger
group, a conservative estimate placing their number at nearly
110,000 species while the monocots number less than 25,000.
In the dicots there are approximately 46,000 species with
sympetalous flowers, that 1s, with parts united, and 62,000 with
polypetalous and apetalous flowers. In this latter group, 50,000,
or nearly five-sixths, have superior ovaries. In the sympeta-
lous flowers, 22,000, or about half, have superior ovaries.
Approximately 12,000 plants in the monocots have superior
ovaries. A curious thing connected with this subject is the
fact that there are practically no monocots with sympetalous
flowers. The few instances that occur, such as Convallaria,
Asparagus and Aletris serve as the exceptions which prove
the rule.
TUBE-ROSE OR TUBER-OSE.— The common names of
plants are derived from many sources and are often older
than the scientific terms applied to them,—especially if they
happen to have beautiful flowers or a reputation for curing
disease. In many cases the scientific names are adaptations
of the older common names given intentionally by educated
people, but in the common name given to that cinnamon-
scented bulbous plant commonly called the tuberose we have
an example of how ignorance may also contribute to the
nomenclature of plants. Our plant, which in scientific par-
lance is Polianthes tuberosa has nothing in connection with
roses. The popular name is a corruption of the specific name,
tuberosa, which means “producing or resembling tubers.”
Polhanthes tuberosa was apparently too lengthly for popular
usage and the first half was accordingly dropped, the plant
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 147
then being known as tuberosa, just as the florist speaks of
American beauty roses as “beauties” and chrysanthemums as
“mums.’’ Apparently tuberosa had no meaning to the average
gardener and so it gradually came to be known as tube-rose—
a rose with a tube, as the name is now sometimes translated.
The latest dictionaries give authority for either form of the
name and so the tuber-ose is slowly becoming a tube-rose,
because those who use the word are unfami iar with the Latin.
There is a large number of plants with common names de-
rived from the scientific such as rose, aster, peony, lupine and
the like, but cases in which the specific name has given rise
to the common name are exceedingly rare.
FLOWERS AND THE CAMERA.—The amateur photographer
with a kodak soon discovers that there is a great difference
in the way different flowers affect the sensitized plate or film.
White flowers come out clear and distinct, blue and pink
flowers are nearly as good and red is not impossible, but
when it comes to yellow and orange flowers the trouble begins.
One may turn the camera on a clump of plants fairly blazing
with yellow only to find after the negative has been developed
that the flowers can be distinguished from the leaves only
with difficulty. To oblige the yellow to make its mark, one
must slip over his lens a ray-filter which sorts out the rays
of light and thus produces the desired effect. Many of the
yellow flowers among the compositae have another surprise
in store for the photographer whose equipment lacks a ray-
filter. Some day he photographs a clear yellow composite and
when the plate is developed he finds the image of a two col-
ored flower. The rays, which appeared to the eye as clear
yellow, now show the inner half to hold a darker color. When
the color screen, however, is placed over the lens the photo-
graph obtained shows no trace of this second color. Evidently
the inner half of the rays reflect the light in a way that affects
the sensitive surface, though the eye cannot distinguish it.
148 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
The peculiarity is now known to belong to several of the Com-
positae, among them various forms of the common sunflower
as well as a Mexican species, Bidens heterophylla, in which the
phenomenon appears to have been first noticed. The writer
of this paragraph has found the peculiarity in another sun-
flower, Helianthus lactiforus, in Coreopsis trichosperma, and
in Rudbeckia triloba. It is to be noted that the plants in
which this feature is present, belong to a group in which the
ray flowers are often marked with brown or brownish-red at
the base, though some of the species which affect the pho-
tographic plate in this way have no known forms with this
peculiarity, We may suggest the hypothesis, however, that
in plants which show this feature a red color is latent and
could be brought out by breeding. To make a series of
photographs of flowers of this kind would be an interesting
pastime and would possibly indicate a number of plants from
which a start might be made in breeding.
VARIETIES OF AsTERS.—The herbarium kind of botanist
often speaks disparagingly of the gardener’s favorites but the
latter individual makes everything even by considering all
plants growing without cultivation as mere weeds. It is not
uncommon for the thoughtless to ask “Is it a flower or a
weed? when some new specimen with handsome flowers is
brought to their notice. All cultivated flowering plants, must
of course, grow wild somewhere, though in many cases the
garden forms have been improved by inducing them to bear
differently colored or larger flowers, or more of them. It
may astonish many botanists, however, to know that gardeners
have no less than ten named varieties of the New England
aster (Aster nova-Angliae) while the botanical manuals have
only one—rosea. Among the gardener’s creations are plants
with deep crimson flowers which quite outclass the pink-
flowered form that botanists have thought worth while digni-
fying with a name. Many other species of our native asters
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 149
are cultivated and are regarded by plant lovers as quite as
handsome as any other garden flowers. The New York
aster (4. nova-Belgu) has no less that twenty-six varieties
in cultivation, the flowers ranging in color from white to clear
blue and deep pink. If ever the species maker gets hold of
an up-to-date nurseryman’s list what a changing of names and
making of new species there will be!
STABILITY AT Last.—One thing that every botanist de-
sires is stability in plant names. Some fifteen or twenty years
ago, we were told that to get stability, all we had to do was to
follow the lead of certain advocates of an “American Code”
for naming plants. A good many students who thought they
could forcast the future to some extent were dubious about
such methods of obtaining stability but others showed their
confidence in the new movement by using the nomenclature
in the books they issued. The monumental “Illustrated Flora”
used this nomenclature and now that the second edition has
appeared we can see just how this stability works. We find
that during the time that elapsed between the first and second
editions, 136 genera and several hundred species have had a
change of name. This ought to settle those obstreperous indi-
viduals who keep repeating that there is no stability under the
American Code. If changing so many plant names isn’t
stability, what 1s it?
WINE-RED SUNFLOWERS.—It is likely that the common
garden sunflower is well known to everybody. ‘The large
golden-yellow ray-flowers and dark disk-flowers make it a
most conspicuous object whether growing in the garden or
as an escape along roadsides. In its native home, between
the Mississippi river and the Rocky mountains, there is a
variety lenticularis which occasionally has the base of the rays
marked with chestnut-red. Recently, Prof. T. D, A. Cockerell,
who found plants of this kind, resolved to see what could be
made of it by breeding, and by crossing it with an English
150 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
variety frimulinus, he has produced a new form with wine red
rays. This he has named vinosus, The reason for crossing
the chestnut-red plant with the primrose-colored one was to
avoid the orange tint which was rightly regarded as preventing
the chestnut-red from becoming clear red. In primulinus the
orange is lacking and the resulting cross had rays of “rich,
deep wine red.” The new form is soon to be put on the
market and will no doubt do much to make the garden bright
in summer.
ANTHEsIs.—The term anthesis is used to indicate the
period of time in which a given flower is concerned in pollina-
tion. The word is sometimes taken to mean the expanding
of flowers, but many flowers, for example those without floral
envelopes—calyx and corolla—have nothing to expand. The
end accomplished in anthesis, is, of course, the fertilization
of the eggs in the young ovules and this presupposes pollina-
tion, but the causes that effect anthesis are many. In some
flowers it is warmth, in others light, in still others moisture
or some combination of these forces. In some plants the
opening of the flowers seems conditioned on the vegetative
processes of the plant, and in others, darkness rather than
light produces the effect. Flowers that open in the morning
may close at evening and open the next day, but those that
open at night and close at dawn are less likely to open again.
Many flowers, however, that close in the morning in warm
weather may remain open all day when the weather is cooler.
In general there is a noticeable difference between flowers that
have ceased blooming and those that have closed temporarily.
Usually the wilting of the corrolla indicates that blooming
has finished but in a few cases this is no criterion. In the
spider flower, for example, the flowers open toward evening
and by mid-forenoon of the next day the petals hang limp
and twisted as if ready to fall from the plant. But as evening
approaches they unfold once more and appear as fresh as ever
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST : 151
until another morning comes, when they wilt again and this
time do not recover. Before the day is ended they have fallen.
A Curtous FERN PEsT.—Some time ago, a friend of
this magazine sent the editor some fronds of the marsh fern
which at first glance seemed to bear its fruit dots, or sporangia,
in a broad band on the rachis. ‘The fern is noted for pro-
ducing abundant sporangia which at maturity quite cover the
underside of the pinnules and it therefore seemed quite natural
for it to bear sporangia on the rachis to which the pinnules
were attached, but a little closer examination revealed the
fact that the band of spore cases is merely the decorations,
as it were, of a silken cover spun by some small but cunning
larva for its own protection. The occurrence of such an insect
on the ferns has apparently not before been reported and is
well worth recording.
Acips In Fruirs.—Even sweet fruits have some acid in
them and, as everybody knows, the sourness of other kinds is
due to an excess of such acids. Though there are apparently
a good many degrees of sourness in fruits, the acids which
cause them are comparatively few. Malic acid seems to be
the principal one. It is, probably the only acid, in plums,
apples, cherries, bananas, persimmons, watermelons, peaches
and quinces as well as many others. In the canteloupe, lemon,
orange, and pomegranate citric acid is found, while in cran-
berries, raspberries, and blackberries both citric and malic
acids are present. In some cases one or the other of these
acids is represented by a mere trace or it may disappear
altogether.
A Grant MusHroom.— Among the many fine things
which come to those who walk in Nature’s ways, are the little
surprises she holds in store for her true lovers. One does not
have to go far afield, nor seek strange places to encounter
them. They come like the last ounce thrown in by the gen-
erous dealer for good measure, though the full demand is
152 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
satished without it. A trip for mushrooms across the Mich-
igan Agricultural College grounds was rewarded recently by
finding a shaggy mane (Coprinus comatus) so unusual in size
as to quite demand record. Standing in the grass near Red
Cedar river this patriarch of its kind towered to the full height
of fourteen and one-half inches. The umbrella, but little
raised as is the habit of these fleecy fellows, was ten inches
in circumference and eight inches in lengtia, Whe gerema nm!
three and one-half inches around, stood sturdily bearing its
load of a little more than a pound. Lying on a man’s arm
the cap covered the hand completely and the stem reached
back from the finger tips nearly to the elbow. Sometimes
Nature does her wonderful things in the little, the minute,
and then to remind us of her command over the full range
of things within her realm, she startles us with a display of
her might. Whether in the great or the small there is always
the perfection of the master hand—never a line misplaced,
never a jar in color, never an error in proportion, but every-
where such grace and harmony as inclines her followers
toward lke harmony and beauty —A, T. Blodgett.
SPIDER FLOWER CHANGING CoLor.—Like many another
pink-flowered species, the spider flower (Cleome pungens) has
a white variety. To find both kinds of flowers growing on
the same plant, however, is something out of the ordinary and
when the two kinds of flowers turn out to be the same flower
at different stages of development, the fact is still more remark-
able. The list of flowers with changeable color is constantly
increasing, but so far as we are aware, none have been reported
in which colored flowers have become white as they grow
older. The cotton flower opens white and turns pink, as do
the flowers of the white trilltum, the Japanese honeysuckle
opens white and turns yellow and several flowers, such as
apple and peach, which are pink in bud may become white or
nearly so in full flower, but the spider flower here noted opens
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 153
a clear rose purple in the evening and by morning has become
pure white. This latter color is not the white of faded flowers
—the blossoms are as fresh and strong as when they first
unfolded their petals. Other plants of the same species grow-
ing near this specimen do not run this gamut of color changes
in blooming and the faculty of doing so seems to be an indi-
vidual peculiarity. That it adds greatly to the attractiveness
of the plant can well be imagined.
Tue Century PLant.—there are numerous misinterpre-
tations still clinging around the century plant, despite the fact
that it is now so commonly grown. It is surprising that people
so well informed on other subjects still cling to the old notion
that it only blooms once 1n a hundred years.
It is equally surprising to many to learn that, while the
plant rarely blossoms in the North, such a demonstration is not
a desirable one. For the strength concentrated in that mighty
floral effort, as ungainly and stiff as anything ever shown in
Matte, 1s fatal to the plant. So those who have finely
developed specimens of the agave should waste no time in long-
ing for blossoms. The main beauty, in fact, the only beauty, is
in the leaves, those with variegated foliage being greatly pre-
ferable. During the summer season, this plant thrives best
when kept well watered, with a weekly allowance of liquid
manure or other fertilizer. In winter it should be kept in a
warm, dry place and watered only sparingly if at all. The scale
is its chief insect enemy. This is easily seen on the smooth,
large leaves, and as readily routed with whale oil soap or any
of the other standard insecticides —Bessie L. Putnam.
VioLtA Pepata.—Apropos of the editor’s note on the dis-
tribution of Viola pedata, I find a sheet of this species collected
for me by Miss Margaret R. Adams at Columbus Junction,
Iowa, May 1, 1902, with the strongly contrasted petals. ‘The
flowers are 3.5 centimeters across and the leaves are lightly
pubescent, perhaps better, puberulent, This is the latitude of
Keokuk and adds another western state to the list of those in
which this form has been found. My eastern plants have
flowers about half as large as the lowa plant. The western
form is certainly a beauty.—J. M. Bates, Red Cloud, Neb.
INS
EDITORIAL
S
wy
The present number completes the first volume of this
magazine in its new form and it 1s with much satisfaction that
we are able to report that the new departure has been entirely
successful. Our subscription list is now larger than at any other
time in the history of the magazine and we therefore purpose
continuing the publication substantially on the lines of the
volume now closing. It has never been our aspiration to pub-
lish the long and technical articles that make up the bulk of
many botanical publications. Such articles are undoubtedly
necessary to explain the steps by which certain results have
been obtained, but frequently the results themselves may be
stated in a single paragraph. It is the design of this magazine
to stand in a certain sense between the technical publications
and the reader interested in general botany—to cast into read-
able form the results obtained and to collect the vast number
of facts regarding plants which, though overlooked by the
technical student, are none the less important. These latter
are absolutely necessary to fill up the gaps between the larger
studies and in days to come will prove their value many times.
We trust, therefore, that our readers will not overlook these
little things. We especially want the items which of them-
selves do not. seem sufficiently important to make a long
article. In addition, we desire photographs of anything of
botanical interest, with or without accompanying text. For
such matter as we can use proper remuneration will be made.
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 155
Once more we call attention to our list of permanent
subscribers. This list, which is steadily growing, consists of
those who consider themselves regular patrons of the maga-
zine and who expect us to send it to them until they definitely
order it stopped, paying each year when most convenient. In
this way they avoid the possible loss of one or more numbers
between the expiration and renewal of their subscriptions. In
view of the permancy which attaches to such subscriptions, the
rate to permanent subscribers is 75 cents a year. No sub-
scriber will now be placed on the permanent list unless he
subscribes for at least two years in advance at the reduced
rate, though thereafter he may pay 75 cents annually as the
others do. A transfer to the permanent list carries with it
no obligation to continue a subscriber longer than the time
paid for and we suggest that many more of our readers would
find this method of subscribing both convenient and econom-
ical.
* Ok Ok
Those who bind their magazines and wish the volumes
to be of equal size are informed that the type area of the new
magazine has been so arranged that it may be cut down to
its former size without any loss of appearance except that
which comes from wider margins.
* OK 3K
Only a short time ago, new species of plants were de-
scribed without much regard to the fundamentals upon which
all good species should be based; in fact, it was seriously
doubted whether there were any fundamentals of this kind.
It was usually sufficient if some eminent authority thought his
plant distinct enough to warrant a new name. The fascinating
researches of the plant breeders into the workings of Mendel’s
Law, however, are rapidly changing our views upon this im-
portant question. If the scientists have not yet given us exact
rules for distinguishing species, they have, at least, given us
156 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
many helps toward the singling out of spurious species. When,
by the proper manipulation of a certain form, other forms
previously described as distinct species are derived from it,
we are forced to the conclusion that the describer of such
species was mistaken, no matter how eminent a scientist he is.
In Bateson’s “Principles of Heredity” the author well says:
“One has only to glance over trays of bird skins, the port-
folios of a herbarium or drawers of butterflies and moths to
discover abundant ‘species’ which are analytical varieties of
others. *°* * Plenty of the characterse wiicheancs aay
known to segregate would be far more than sufficient to con-
stitute specific differences in the eyes of most systematists
were the plants and animals in question brought home by
collectors. We may even be certain that numbers of excellent
species universally recognized by entomologists and ornitholo-
gists, for example, would, if subjected to breeding tests, be
immediately proved to be analytical varieties differing from
each other merely in the presence or absence of definite fac-
tors.” It may be added that the ornithologists and entomo-
logists have no monopoly of the naming of species that are
not species. Probably the worst offenders on earth are the
botanists. However, as Bateson has indicated, the tide is
turning and one is warranted in assuming that the next manual
of botany to be issued will list a much smaller number of species
and still include all those that occur in its region.
BOOKS AND WRITERS
Nature and Culture, of Cincinnati, has recently changed
its title to The Bluebird. It is the organ of the Ohio Audubon
Society and contains considerable attractive matter relating
to ornithology.
There are various ways of obtaining fame as an author.
Some accomplish it in a single bound by a single book, others
attain it after many years and the writing of many volumes,
and still others may strike a popular chord after one or two
attempts, but Dr. J. K. Small of the New York Botanical
Garden has discovered a new and original way of attracting
the attention of the botanical public, at least he has issued five
books in a bunch which ought to have this effect. This versa-
tile author recently brought out no less than four different
floras, including a second edition of his “Southern Flora,”
which of itself is as big as a dictionary, and in addition has
produced a book on Florida trees. This sets a mark in book-
making that bids fair to be unsurpassed for some time.
Henry H. Saylor’s “Book of Annuals” is likely to be-a
disappointment to anybody except the veriest novice. It is
not a comprehensive treatment of the annual flowering plants
such as one might perhaps expect from the title, but is a list
Ometirey species that are easily cultivated. Each species is
illustrated with a good photographic reproduction and on a
page facing this 1s to be found a certain amount of information
regarding its cultivation and time of bloom, which ought to
Beseamed as easily from any good seed catalogue. It is a
book that no doubt will be of interest to the beginning gar-
dener, but others will find little of value in it and there is still
reom for a real book of annuals. McBride, Nast & Co., New
York, are the publishers.
A new book which possesses several unique features and
is designed for use in the botanical laboratory, has just been
158 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
issued by the editor of this magazine. It is a combined
“Laboratory Notebook and Manual of Botany,” space being
left after each question for an adequate answer. The book is
one of the very few botanical manuals issued on the “loose
leaf” plan but is so bound that it may be used with its own
covers 1f the pupil does not care to use a separate notebook
cover. The volume deals with the structure and functions of
flowering plants with a brief survey of the lower groups, and
forms a lucid introduction to agronomy, systematic botany or
a study of the spore-plants. Each study is complete in itself,
but the work is so arranged that it may be extended or con-
densed at any point if the teacher desires. It is published by
Ginn & Co., Boston, at 50 cents.
The study of the laws which underlie heredity in plants
and animals and their applications to the new science of
Eugenics has progressed so rapidly that even the up-to-date
scientist runs some risk of being left behind in such matters.
A host of investigators are at work on a variety of problems
connected with Mendelism and new results are announced
almost daily. Bateson’s volume entitled “Mendel’s Principles
of Heredity,’ which sets forth an account of these advances,
has been reprinted three times since 1909. The third impres-
sion with additions has just appeared and forms a most inter-
esting and authoritative volume of some 400 pages. The bulk
of the book is concerned with the laws underlying the heredity
of color, this being the line upon which much of the work has
been done, probably because of the clearness of the results to
be obtained, but other features of the work have not been
neglected; in fact, the book is an excellent summary of what
has thus far been accomplished, with much information as to
how these facts have been discovered and their bearing upon
the whole subject of heredity and breeding. A number of
black and white figures as well as several colored plates add
illumination to the text. The book is an octavo and is pub-
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 159
lished by the Cambridge University Press for which Messrs.
G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, are the American agents.
Two of the botanical Coulters—John M. and John G.—
have each recently issued a text book in botany designed to
form an introduction to agriculture and applied botany in
general. Both books are 12mos of 453 pages and though dis-
cussing essentially the same subjects are so different in arrange-
ment that they may be reviewed together without creating
invidious distinctions. John M.’s volume is entitled “‘Ele-
mentary Studies in Botany’ and is issued by the Appleton’s;
John G.’s bock has the title “Plant Life and Plant Uses” and
is published by the American Book Company. John M., who,
by the way, is the father of John G., is head of the Department
of Botany in the University of Chicago, and has previously
written several works of similar nature; the other volume
appears to be the first effort of John G. in this line, though
not his first book by any means. “Elementary Studies in
Botany” begins with microscopic and other algae and carries
the thread of evolution through the Bryophytes and Pterido-
phytes to the flowering plants after which consideration 1s
given to leaves, stems, roots, and the like. This sequence,
though a perfectly logical one, is not, in the opinion of the
reviewer, the proper sequence in which to present the facts of
botany to the beginning student; in fact, this phase of botany
seems everywhere to be losing ground as a high school subject,
experience having shown that it is not attractive to the average
student and does not leave him with much that later will be
useful. Dr. Coulter, however, is a clear and attractive writer
and presents his subject in a way to interest the student if he
can be interested in this phase of the subject. The second
part of the book is semi-agricultural with parts devoted to the
soil, propagating, breeding, fruits, vegetables, fiber plants,
etc. This part may appear to the practical man as somewhat
academic since it tells about the cultivation of plants instead of
160 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
how to do it. In “Plant Life and Plant Uses’? the more
familiar sequence of root, stem, leaf, flower, ~amd> fruit is
taken up, preceded by a discussion of plants and plant pro-
cesses in general and followed by chapters on the non-vascular
and vascular plants. The whole book is cast in an agreeable
and almost colloquial style that will readily find response in
the minds of the boys and girls to whom it is addressed. The
lists of questions which follow each chapter seem destined
to greatly aid the pupil in the assimilation of the text. Both
books are well illustrated and ought to run a pretty even race
for popularity.
“The New Gardening” by Walter P, Wright is not, as one
might assume from the title, devoted to the feats of horticul-
tural “wizards.” On the contrary, it 1s concerned with the
latest developments in all phases of gardening: pergolas, bor-
ders, vegetables, fruits, sundials, rock gardens, the more deco-
rative flowering plants, and the like. Though the author is an
Englishman and writes for British readers the book cannot fail
to be of interest on this side of the world for the subjects it
discusses are those with which all garden lovers are concerned.
American gardeners, however, may be warned that our climate
will not permit some of the operations that are successful in
England. Nor should one take up the book in expectation of
finding exhaustive information of the newest forms of plants
discussed. The notes are rather brief and often unsatisfactory,
in fact the brevity to be noted in all parts of the book is a
distinct disappointment, though possibly necessary 1n a volume
which covers so large a field. The book is really a cursory and
entertaining dissertation on present-day methods of gardening.
It is published by Doubleday, Page & Co. at $2.00 net.
“
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC AND
ECOLOGICAL BOTANY
.s
EDITED BY WILLARD N. CLUTE
Volume XX
JOLIET, ILL.
WILLARD N. CLUTE & CO.
1914
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CONTENTS
ILLUSTRATED ARTICLES MARKED WITH A STAR (*).
Rumm@temcotoneuc, [he 3. ....2.-.....5 42 ddclla Prescott
Emammins, (he Trailing........0....... 42 Adella Prescott
Ewaeienoke: Ihe Chinese............ Willard N. Clute
Reamer Naming Plants, [he.............2 Aven Nelson
mecemminerns. [he. 60. c.b. ees. ls. Willard N. Clute
erence and the Desert, The........ Willard N. Clute
Melia oweet Mlag and... 2 uj... eZ Adella Prescott
Calopogon, An Abnormal Flower of....&dwin D. Hull
Meme CmCOTiM. . 2... ee ee AH. M. Canning
eemimmeyvood: An... ss... lee Willard N. Clute
eemmne Ieritroses..-.....-.5.-... Willard N. Clute
SeseoeMONee 2 6. ee os Mrs. S. B. Walker
foenmmianmes trom the Wild.........0..0.66. 006.3 e.
SeamtetiicmGalax tor Market. . 02.2.0... ei ee ae
miemeram Ihe Fringed............. Dr. W. W. Batley
Se Tarciies, (Oth rere Dr. W. W. Bailey
ois Ihe American........... Charles O. Chambers
2 Tints, TUS 54 ie ae Adella: Prescott
MibilerOC ENE... ee es Willard N. Clute
Wiishrooms and Toadstools......... Willard N. Clute
Mines AICAtTION.. Dr W. W. Batley
iNemmaska Plants, Some....-..0.......06. J. M. Bates
Wiranee Pree Stump, Vitality of....... C.F. Saunders
Palestine Fruits in California Gardens..C. F. Saunders
Paper and Paper Stock
Opes ee. 10 hen eee: ere. ee) Ve. Je) 0; © (el ele; Je) 4,0) (0 « -« (6: «©
Remaneneielants, Phe..7..........d Mrs. G. T. Drennan
flemmeatim detly, The... ............ Mrs. G. T. Drennan
Heemineses, Evening ..............- Willard N. Clute
Rudbeckias, Additional Notes on...... S: H. Burnham
Bee gee Yes 5 I, M. Bates
Shrubs for Decorative Planting, Rare. Willard N. Clute
spider Flower, Cultivating the.....Mrs. S. B. Walker
Bre@cmm@loity The... oe. ee Mrs. G. IT. Drennan
Boprayine to Kill Weeds.......... Willard N. Clute
=r sl
Sweet lac samc allay ees ee ee Adella Prescott 134
Thistle, A Treatological...A. Nelson and J. F. McBride *136
Tricarpellany ashe utes = Prof. Charles E> Bessey a2 |
Twaybladeanw Abnormal 2. ae Edwin D. Hull *132
Waters tbyacinth= nesses ape Willard N. Clute *81
Wildflower, A Common, and Its Legends. Maud Going *127
Nerophytes see eee ee Willard N. Clute *6
EDITORIAL, 2 i228 alo, 2 oe eee 36, 442-1156
BOOKS AND WRITERS “51.2222... 58, (Op tie. ibs
NOTE AND COMMENT
Acorns, Two-seeded ie Be ANS
Anemone, Rue, Origin of Tubers
Hs) oot Peek eee eee eae nab
Aster, Species in the Genus...... 152
Bailey, -W-"W.,, Weath of. .-=22 -: eva
Bees;-Color: Blindistes ese een 28
Botrychium Dichronum a Syno-
PLY Tere 27
Burdock, The U Scr se ee LO
Cabbage, The, In Philology......112
Cacts Diswipuion Olt cies eee
Cocklebur, Germination of....... 3
Color-blind@Bees ee... 425 28
Color Changes in Yellow Flowers.108
Color Variations in Rudbeckia...
Doctorates in Botany has
Double Hepaticas ...--. pons ae
Dye-wood, Osage Orange : aS ideas
Evolution Reversed .....:.:......104
Eucaptus vs. Sequoia .. ea bs!
Fern Prothallia and Drouth. ree)
Fern, Rattlesnake, with Two fo)
Fonds 109
Ferns of the Tidieen ert Dine 3
Floral Shoots, Continuous... ~..... 149
Elowers: BlourAroue ja. eee 109
Blowers, sU lita Violets seuss eles.
Flour from Flowers.... 109
Fruits with a Fever. _.154
Helianthus, Number of Rass file eles
Hepatica, Sepals or Petals in... ..106
Hiepaticas; Doubles sen ee
Horsemint White .... ee le
Insects, Tree Doctoring for. Wee See 151
Trises for Winter Blooming. Des hope
Leaves, Cercidophyllum ......... 145
Leaves, Varying Weight of....... 69
Mushroom Spores, Abundant..... 145
Mutation Theory a Myth, The.... 66
Naming Plants, New Way of..... 26
Nature Study. John Burroughs on.110
Nettles, Poisonous] 32225 eee is
Novelties, Valdevore-- ee 31
Orchid Book A New 2220s. 29
Osage Orange as a Dye-wood....113
Ostrich Fern Renamed ...........25
Papert Stock, New == 23 --ee=- 67
Phenological Observations
Wanted? 2 .120
Phlox, A New, for the Garden... 34.
Photosynthesis, Ee ee im... 24
Pine Sap: 2ss.eeee ae er eee
Poison Ivy, Taste of Settee eee 149
Potato, The Ducks=seeeeeeeee eee 71
Prairie Plants: 522 eer 105
Puffballs for Nosebleed.......... 144
Rudbeckia, and Moisture ........ 69
Rudbeckia, Varyine\-23-—- 22-6
Rudbeckia, Color Variations dia Sees
Salts, Absorption of by Plants... tia
Sepals or Petals in Hepatica...... 106
Sequoia, Eucalypins ws. 6 oases se neds
Smilacina Stellata, Berries of. ....106
Snakeroot, White, Lincoln and the.150
Soap from -Planis=.2e ee 67
Species in the Genus Aster....... 152
Starch, Formation of by plants... .148
Stereochemistry 2.72225 es 5.153
Tree Doctoring for Insects....... 151
Tubers of Rue Anemone.. eee!
Udo | -....2s Dae 70
Values in Botany, Changing ..... 67
Varying Rudbeckaas=2 ease =e oc
Varying Weight of Leaves...:... 69
Violets but not Vielasaae ee 72
Violets, Yellow, New Forms of... 32
Water Plantain in Southern Cali-
fomiias 4-5 PP acs eet Ce
Witch Hazel, Delayed Flowering
in. the... 23. 22 e 65
Witch Hazel, Extractweteseneee ee 114
Witch Hazel, Red Flowered . 29
ee
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Vol. 20. No. l Whole Number 100
AMERIC
BOTANIS
FEBRUARY, 1914
f
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Tue AMERICAN BOTANIST
VOL, XX JOLIET, ILL., FEBRUARY, 1914 No. 1
It suttices. What suffices?
Hl suftices, reckoned rightly.
Spring shall bloom where now the tce és,
Roses make the bramble sightly,
Jind the guickening sun shine brightly,
And the latter wind blow lightly,
Jind my garden teem with spices.
— Rosetti.
THE AMERICAN LOTUS
By CuHas. O. CHAMBERS,
O plant in history, perhaps, has been invested with a larger
meed of mysticism and romance than that accorded to
the lotus (Nelumbiwm). Other genera than Nelumbium have
shared the effulgence of myth and poetry associated with this
name but they are not included here. Whether the sacred bean
or lotus of the Nile was truly a Neluwmbiwm or not it is difficult
to say, now, but it seems certain that Nelumbium speciosum, a
native of India and cultivated in the old world from time 1m-
memorial, was brought to the Nile and, under cultivation, was
highly prized as food at first but later also for its beauty; that
it flourished for a time and eventually disappeared from that
region, leaving only its name and memory.
With the exception of its color and the shape of the anther
the sacred lotus of the Orient (N. speciosum), is identical with
our American lotus (N. lutewm), which is yellow in place of
2 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
pink and has the distinction of a hooked anther appendage.
The range of this plant in America is more extensive than is
commonly supposed. It has been found as far south as eastern
Florida and Louisiana and as far north as the region of the
Great Lakes. It has been reported native as far west as Minne-
sota, lowa and Missouri and it is abundant at the present time
in the swamps along the Illinois river and along the Mississippi
river between Missouri and Illinois. It is also said to bé abund-
ant in the West Indies. Its natural habitat is about the smaller
lakes and stagnant pools or bayous..
The more common name of chinquapin or water-chinqua-
pin is evidently of aboriginal origin and serves to distinguish
it from the chinquapin among the oaks and chestnuts. It is
said that the Osage and other Indian tribes used the seeds as
well as the tubers of Neluwmbium for food and that they planted
the seeds, hence the name; but their plantings must not have
been very extensive or successful or the plant would be more
generally distributed than it is at present. When once estab-
lished Nelumbium holds its place and spreads more successfully
by means of its rhizomes and tubers.
The flower, the largest in America, with the single excep-
tion of that of Magnolia grandiflora, grows singly upon a
flower-stalk which raises it some distance above the water.
This is in strong contrast to the water-lies, the Nymphaeas
which float upon the surface at the end of a long pliant stem in
some species or rise only a few inches above the surface in
others. The flower, resembling a “‘semi-double tulip” in form,
opens in the morning and closes in the afternoon for three or
four successive days, unless pollinated. The rich creamy yellow
of the torus and stamens added to the milk-white or primrose
of the petals, its large size, often reaching eight or ten inches
in diameter, and its delicate pine-apple odor make it, in many
respects, “the noblest flower that dedicates its beauty to the
sun.” The center of the flower is a seed-pod or torus, two or
The flower resembles a semi-double tutip in form.
more inches in diameter, resembling the rose-nozzle of a
sprinkling can. This resemblance is heightened by the presence
of about two dozen stigmas arranged in concentric circles. The
stigmas are tiny knobs in the flower but in fruit are reduced to
pits or crater-like openings, within each of which is a single
nut-like seed or chinquapin. These become almost loose enough
to drop out when dry. When ripe and dry this entire fruit,
now about double its size in the flower, makes an odd-shaped
rattle-box which curves over on its stem and nods toward the
water. Later it falls off and floats head downward on the
water and scatters the seeds as it floats, a novel method of seed
dissemination. In the Orient the seeds are planted by being
wrapped in a handful of clay to serve as ballast and dropped
where they are wanted to grow. This was the method in vogue
along the Nile in the days of Herodotus and 1s still practiced in
India and China.
4 THE AMERICAN BOTANTSa
The peltate, orbicular leaves, the largest possessed by any of
our native plants, at first float flat upon the surface of the water
but later are raised by the growth of the stout petiole, to a few
feet above the water, when they assume a salver form and sway
in the wind. The upper surface, on which alone are the
stomata, is covered with a delicate down on which the dew col-
lects like tiny beads of quicksilver. It was the sight of this in
the morning that made the Thibetans exclaim, “Hail, Oh, Hail
the jewel of the Lotus.”
The stem system, which has been carefully studied by a
number of botanists, forms an extensive network beneath the
shime. After the flowering season this becomes a rich food
reservoir stored with starch for the next year’s growth. The
tubers thus formed are said to resemble sweet potatoes in taste
and have been prized as food by various natives. Chariton
county, Missouri, takes’ its name from the Chariton river,
whose name, it is said, is derived from the Indian name for
Nelumbium, where the seeds and tubers of this plant were
utilized for food by the natives.
Neither the seeds nor the tubers of our Nelumbium luteum
are likely to attain the favor in modern diet which those of
N. speciosum enjoyed in the balmy days of the lotus-eaters
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
ur
described by Tennyson and more ancient writers; nor even the
favor which the latter finds in the far Eastern countries as food
and for the decoration of their temples; but the richness and
beauty of the flower should entitle it to a larger place among
the decorative plants where swamps or shallow pools are avail-
able. It should at least be known in its wild state, in its natural
haunts as one of our most showy native flowers.
UNDRAPED TREES
By Dr. W. W. BaILey.
REES are, in their way, as distinctive and beautiful in
winter as in the warmer seasons. Each, even when un-
draped, has its characteristic silhouette. Again, there are far
more than is generally supposed that are at all times, at least
partially clothed. These, while of wide distribution as to
relationship, take the general name of evergreens. Most people
confine the use of that term to the Coniferz, or members of
the great pine family, but a moment’s reflection adds a vast
number to the list of those that retain their foliage, though
perhaps not their verdancy, throughout the winter. We at once
recall rhododendrons, mountain laurel, lambkill, bayberries,
smilaxes, certain hollies, ferns, ground pines, pyrolas, etc.
On the other hand, there are certain true Conifere that
are truly deciduous, such as the ginkgo, or maidenhair tree,
whose fruit is a sort of berry, the various kinds of larches, the
cypress, etc. These wholly drop their leaves in autumn, renew-
ing them in spring.
The immediate bark or jacket of trees is fixed and gener-
ally recognizable in its color, character of surface, and often
by the kinds of mosses or lichens that dwell upon it. Take as
instances the smooth, gray, mottled coat of the beech, or the
6 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
peculiar ridgy surface of ash, elm or oak. The ridgy kinds of
bark are so. many and so diverse that a special nomenclature
has been created by foresters and tree students for describing
them. This takes into account the height and width of the
ridges as well as the depth and shape of. the circumscribed
spaces between them. Again, one must note whether the pro-
jections are more or less parallel or to what degree they inter-
lace, bisect, or cross each other. Thus we may have a diamond
or triangular or checker-board pattern. - Absolutely no two
trees are alike in their bark and we may add that no two indi-
viduals even of the same species are alike.
XEROPHYTES
By WILLARD N. Crore:
T is impossible for plants to live without water, but the
xerophytes come pretty near to accomplishing it. A plant
that can get along for twenty-five years without fresh supplies
of moisture, seems practically independent of soil water or
rainfall. All ordinary plants must have a perennial supply
of moisture or they die. Let the rains hold off until they have
sucked the water from the soil and they wither at once, but
a little thing like lack of rain does not bother the xerophyte.
Its very name, in fact, means drought plant, and the fortitude
with which it endures a dry season that would put our worst
weeds out of business is eloquent testimony to the effectiveness
of the devices for retaining water with which it is equipped.
A xerophyte is Nature’s last word in the conservation of
water by plants. 3
Xerophytes are usually regarded as inhabitants of deserts,
but not all the plants in deserts are xerophytes, nor do all
xerophytes live in deserts. There are no deserts in which no
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
~
rain falls and frequently there is a distinct rainy season during
which there is sufficient moisture to enable a large number
of annuals to spring up, flower and ripen their seeds before
it dries up—if they are quick about it. Such plants are not
to be classed with xerophytes. True xerophytes are plants
that can live year after year in regions where rain falls only
occasionally and where, for the greater part of each year, all
the conditions of a desert are present. During the infrequent
rains they manage to store up enough water to tide them over
the dry seasons.
A xerophyte is Nature’s last word in the conservation of water.
There are many other situations in which the conditions
which make for xerophytism in plants prevail. Our Northern
States in winter are essentially deserts. There is plenty of
water in the soil, it is true, but locked up in the form of ice
8 THE AMERICAN. BOTANIST
it is as useless to plants as if it did not exist. Thus we find the
plants behaving as they do in the desert, growing when water
is available and dying or going into a resting period at the
approach of drought. The perennial plants protect them-
selves from completely drying up in winter by dropping their
leaves and shielding their tender young cells by bark, bud-
scales, down and varnish. Any spot from-~ which the
water rapidly escapes after a rain will be xerophytic.
Included in this catagory are sand dunes, cliffs and the trunks
of trees. The prevalence of salt or other substances in the
soil-water may also cause xerophytic conditions by hindering
the flow of water into the plant. Many bogs thus present
really desert conditions to the plants inhabiting them. Like
the frozen soil of winter, the bogs are not physically dry, but,
what amounts to the same thing, they are physiologically dry.
The characteristics which make a plant most successful
as a xerophyte may be placed in three groups: they must have
means for rapidly absorbing moisture; they must have some
way of storing the moisture absorbed; and they must possess
means for preventing this stored moisture from escaping into
the air again. An extensive root system is usually the means
of absorbing moisture, though some xerophytes, when epiphy-
tic, may absorb through their leaves: Storage of water may
occur in regular cisterns formed by the overlapping bases of
the leaves or the leaves themselves may become cisterns. Illustra-
tions of this may be found in the wild pines and pitcher plants of
tropical regions and even our own pitcher plants are now
regarded as xerophytes of this type. Water may also be
stored in tuber-like receptacles as in some ferns and orchids,
in underground roots and stems, but probably the more
usual method of storage is in certain cells of the leaf, called
water storage cells. These may form a sort of water blanket
enveloping the green parts of the leaf or they may be in the
interior of the leaf surrounded by the green tissue.
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 9
Most interesting of xerophytic characteristics are those
which are concerned with the retention of moisture. At the
outset we find our plants divided into two groups: one, rep-
resented by the cacti, without leaves and performing all the
work of food making by means of its green stems; the other,
represented by the agave and yucca, retaining its leaves and
protecting them from evaporation. While it is probable that
certain leafy xerophytes, to be mentioned later, represent the
most resistant types of vegetation on the earth, the cacti are
eminently successful types and in a drought-enduring contest
would undoubtedly outlast nearly all comers. ‘They are ad-
mirably adapted for this by their thick and leathery epidermis,
through which water escapes very slowly, by their sap which,
mixed with mucilage and other gums, is slow to evaporate,
but especially by their stems which tend to become cylindrical
or spherical, this latter form being the one which presents the
least surface for a given bulk and thus presents the least
chance possible for evaporation,
In the leafy xerophytes, the leaves are seldom large and
in some even these are dropped when conditions become
severe. Long and narrow leaf forms are common and in
certain extreme types the leaves are cylindrical with an
abundant water tissue suggesting the plan after which cactus
stems are constructed. Evaporation from the leaves is re-
tarded by a thick epidermis, or by a coat of wax, hairs, or
varnish. The small openings in the epidermis, called stoniata,
which are necessary for an exchange of gases with the outside
air, and through which moisture may escape, are usually on
the under, shaded side of the leaf. On hot days the escape
of moisture through these may be further hindered by the
leaves rolling backward and enclosing them, or the stomata,
themselves, may be sunk in pits or grooves in the leaf and
protected by wax and hairs. A few partial xerophytes, like
our well-known compass plant and the gums of Australia,
10 THE AMERICAN BOTANIS#
turn their leaves edgewise to the sun and thus avoid transpira-
tion.
A region in which water seldom falls would seem to be
sufficiently trying to plants, but it is not the limit of inhos-
pitable conditions. In some deserts there is the additional
handicap of strong salts in the soil. This 1s doubly a desert
and yet Nature has: fashioned a few forms that can exist
even here. They are mostly plants of the houseleek and
pigweed families with thick cylindrical leaves and a cell-sap
of such high osmotic pressure that they can absorb moisture
in spite of the salt.
Between the true xerophytes and the plants of moister
regions, there are all degrees of gradation. Many plants
possess only a few xerophytic characteristics, their manner
and place of life not requiring a greater specialization. “in
tracing such structures in even our common plants and cor-
relating them with their environment, the student of botany
can find both profit and entertainment.
THE PLANTAIN LILY
By Mrs. GeorciA TORREY DRENNAN.
N many parts of our country the Funkia is known as the day
lily. In reality, it is a very different flower from its near
relative the Hemerocallis, or true day lily. Funkia was the
name given this genus in honor of Funk, the German botanist.
Despite the fact that Funk well deserved to have a plant named
for him, the generic name never became popular, and the plants
continued to be known by the pleasing and descriptive name be-
longing more properly to the genus Hemerocallis. Anticipating
the confusion that was likely to follow its general use, Robin-
son, editor of “The Garden” in England, offered a prize for a
suitable common name to displace the botanical name.
TP eAMERICAN BOLANTST iat
“Plantain Lily’ was the name that won the prize. This oc-
curred over thirty years ago, and the name has since become
well established. The resemblance of the leaves of the lily to the
wild plantains is so decided that the name is very appropriate.
Funkia grandiflora, the species, has pure white funnel
shaped lilies as sweet as orange flowers, fifteen to eighteen in
number, borne on tall scapes, each flower in the axil of a bract.
It blooms steadily from July till autumn frosts. The foliage
is of a lighter shade of green than that of its varieties. This
plant will not fail to give satisfaction. Among gardeners it is
sometimes known as F. subcordata. |
Funkia lanceolata has the narrowest leaves of any; they
are bright green, about five inches long and three inches broad,
lanceolate, tapering at both ends. The lilies are pale lilac, each
flower in the axil of a bract.
Funkia albo-marginata is a vatiety of F. lanceolata. The
leaves are fully seven inches long and proportionately broad.
Each leaf is edged with a silvery white line, constant through-
out the season. It blooms earlier than the other varieties.
_ Funkia undulata has beautiful rich green foliage distinctly
blotched with white. It blooms early. .Punkia ovata, the. blue
plantain lily, has violet-blue flowers. Like other herbaceous
plants, the Funkias are easily propagated by root divisions.
Either in autumn after they cease to flower or in early spring
before growth begins, the roots may be divided and the plants
meset.
THE TRAILING ARBUTUS
By ADELLA PRESCOTT.
ae why the trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens) should be
~ so commonly known as the Mayflower is hard to tell, for
it often blooms in April and at best is only one of many to
bloom in May; but one thing, at least, is sure: it is one of the
few things for which the good ship Mayflower is in no way
responsible, for it is a native of the New World and is so diffi-
12 TEE AMERICAN BOGANTSa
cult to transplant successfully that even now it would be hard
to establish in a new home across the sea. It belongs to the
Heath family and while some of its relatives may be more
valuable from a utilitarian point of view, (who, living in the
great American pie-belt, will question the value of the huckle-
berry?) it is one of our most exquisite wildflowers, having an
elusive charm that sets it apart from all others.
It is a small trailing evergreen plant with rounded leaves
heart-shaped at the base and with stems bristling with rusty
hairs. The small pink flowers grow in clusters and are
dimorphic as to pistils and stamens and sub-dioecious—in other
words are of two kinds, one having a long pistil and short
stamens while the other has a short pistil and long stamens with
a tendency to unisexualism. The calyx has five sepals and the
corolla is salver-shaped and five-lobed, with a slender tube that
is hairy within and which holds ten stamens and one pistil with
a five-lobed stigma. The many small seeds are held in a five-
lobed and five-celled capsule.
The flowers have a delightful fragrance that is rare among
our flowers of early spring and this fragrance is often a guide
to the dainty sprays that are hidden among the leaves. The
plant grows in sandy woods and has a wide distribution rang-
ing from Newfoundland to Minnesota and southward to
Florida but it is so exacting in its requirements and so 1m-
patient of interference that I doubt if it really is “common” in
any part of its range—certainly it is not so in Central New
York, where we think it worth an annual. pilgrimage to see.
I have read that the difficulty in cultivating it arises from
the fact that it grows only in acid soil which, of course, all
horticulturists would carefully avoid when trying to propagate
an unusual plant. Whether this is really true, or whether it 1s
simply a lime hater, I do not know, but I have never known of
its being successfully grown in gardens.
THE CHINESE ARTICHOKE
EC the popular mind, the word, artichoke, seems to stand for
a class and not a particular thing. Thus we do not speak
‘of the artichoke, but apply the term to a number of plants
which produce bulbous or tuberous edible parts. The globe
artichoke which perhaps is oftenest meant when we use the
word without a qualifying adjective, is the greatly enlarged
flower heads of one of the Compositae, Cynara scolymus.
These often form globular objects three or four inches in
diameter. The bracts of the involucre form the edible portion,
being distended with inulin, a substance allied to starch which
is very common in plants of the Composite family.
The Jerusalem artichoke also belongs to the Composite but
the part eaten is a true tuber instead of a bud. The plant is, in
fact, a sunflower (Helianthus tuberosus). It produces tubers
nearly as large as potatoes and quite as nutritious but with a
Mem dimerent favor due to the inulin they contain. The
Jerusalem artichoke is usually grown as food for stock but the
finer varieties may often be found in market and form no mean
addition to our list of culinary vegetables.
The Chinese or Japanese artichoke, of which we give an il-
lustration herewith, is a very different plant from the other
14 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
artichokes. It is a member of the great mint family (Labiate)
known as Stachys tuberifera or Stachys Sicboldi, and is there-
fore a cousin, at least, of the so-called hedge nettles of our way-
sides and fence rows. Several other species of Stachys produce
tubers but the species here mentioned seems to be the only one
with tubers large enough to make them of commercial impor-
tance. Good specimens may grow to a length of four or five
inches and become as thick as the finger. From six to a dozen
or more tubers are borne by each plant. They are remarkable
for the peculiar constrictions which encircle them at short inter-
vals and which give to the smaller specimens a not very remote
resemblance to a fat white grub.
This plant seems very little known in the United States. It
is a native of China and Japan and therefore likely to be hardy
in most parts of our country. It prefers a moist situation and
is said to spread rapidly. Since it retails in the larger markets
at from thirty to fifty cents a pound, it is likely that it will
prove to be a paying crop in grounds too wet for other culti-
vated plants. The tubers may be left in the soil all winter or
dug as wanted. They are eaten raw in salads or may be
cooked in various ways. When boiled they have a distinct
flavor of oysters which is even more pronounced than that of
the well-known oyster plant (7Tragopogon porrifolius) with
no hint of its alliance with the mints. In addition to the name
of Chinese or Japanese artichoke, the plant is known as knot-
root and Japanese crowns. In the books it is sometimes called
chorogi, which is apparently its native name.
AN ELFIN WOOD
el HE tales brought home by travelers in unexplored lands
have ever been received with some degree of incredulity.
Whether they be the airy fancies of a Gulliver, the downright
prevarications of Baron Munchausen, the. more sober romanc-
ings of Marco Polo, the circumstantial accounts of Heroditus,
or the marvellous relations of the modern globe-trotter, there
is a certain element in all that requires a liberal discount before
they can be accepted. If some of these gentlemen had only
possessed a kodak and had pressed the button at the proper
moment, they might have proved some of even their more re-
markable statements.
The accompanying photograph, for instance, ought to go
a long way toward proving that the country of the Lilliputians
is not entirely one of Dean Swift’s fancies. At least here is
an ordinary man, who is at present connected with this maga-
zine, standing in a forest of old and mature oaks and pines
which do not reach above his knees. By careful examination
one may see the pine cones on the plants in the left half of the
picture. The oaks also are in fruit though the acorns on ac-
count of their size are not so conspicuous. Some of the trees
16 THE AMERICAN BOTANISE
here pictured are undoubtedly much older than the human
giant in their midst.
This remarkable and interesting forest is located in
southern New Jersey where it covers many square miles in the
“sand barrens.” The particular woodland scene here illus-
trated was photographed by Mr. C. F. Saunders several years
ago, when with a companion he made a journey across the
region. The soil is a loose yellowish sand that was evidently
sea bottom not many eons ago. Its apparent lack of fertility
explains the diminutive size of the arborescent vegetation. The
region is practically uninhabited and the facetious natives on
its borders assert that the only animal ever found in it was a
land turtle who was anxiously inquiring the way to the poor
house.
—- —__—=
SOME NEW NEBRASKA PLANTS
DY: | Vis Aas
N July 2, 19138, I collected a striking form of Psoralea
which Dr. Britton says is new to their herbarium. It
closely resembles P. argophylla, Pursh, and until it is found in
fruit, will have to stand as Psoralea argophylla robustior.
It was found on the border of moist haylands and the sand
dunes, in large beds. The whole plant is very robust, with
stems 4—5 mm. in diameter, against 2—3 mm. for argophylla. .
The leaflets are five, the larger 23 mm. broad, obovate to ob-
long, not longer than the longest of argophylla—about 4.5 cm.
Flowers of the same dark blue. Stipules linear 15 mm. long
against 10 mm. for argophylla.
The plant was found 1%4 miles south-west of Whitman,
Grant County, Nebraska, on the Lake border; also ten miles
south, in the yard of Mr. Ben. Matthewson who kindly made
the second collection for me on July 15th when the plant was
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST ily
in full bloom. Specimens are in the herbarium of the New
York Botanical Garden, the herbarium of the University of
Nebraska and my own.
ELYMUS CANADENSIS VILLOSUS.
On july 20 and 21, 1911, at Loup City and Arcadia on
eae Middle Loup river, I collected in the. brush a form of
Elymus Canadensis with villous sheaths and upper leaf surfaces
which has heretofore been undescribed. In August I found the
same form in the Minnechaduga canyon at Valentine, Cherry
County, where it extended for a mile in length. The villosity
varies from dense to a mere border on the sheath margins, the
longer hairs being 1.5 mm. long. The plants are largely of
glaucifolius type, stout or slender and vary through all the
phases of Canadensis with hirsute lemmas, to the scarbrous
elumes and lemmas of brachystachyus showing that there are
no well defined species in this group. In looking over my
whole collection, I find the Wood Lake sheet, collected 26 miles
southeast of Valentine, is the same, while Crawford, 200 miles
west and O’Neill, 100 miles east, furnish the lowest limit of
simply fringed sheaths. If there were any sense in it, one could
make a new variety for Canadensis and for brachystachyus and
perhaps for robustus but cut bono?
HELIANTHUS Bessey1 N. Sp.
Growing in open beds like H. tuberosus. Root system
not strongly tuberous, stems medium, about 5 mm. in diameter
9—10 dm. high, angled and grooved, very rough. Leaves op-
posite, up to the inflorescence, of medium thickness, three-
nerved, scabrous above, pale with canescence below, ovate-
oblong 1—1.5 dm. long, 6 cm. wide (the longest about half
way up the stem) bases rounded or tapering, summit variable,
acute to acuminate; petioles 2—2.5 cm. long, scarcely winged.
Inflorescence dichotomous; heads 1.5 cm, wide without the rays,
the latter 10—15, rather pale yellow, 3 cm. long with brown
veins, puberulent. Involucral bracts mostly appressed, lanceo-
18 THE AMERICAN BOd AwWitsa
late, in about 4 rows, seldom longer than the heads, canescent
throughout, with heavily ciliate margins, acute, the tips cusp1-
date. Disk flowers canescent on the lower fourth, smooth or
puberulent above. Achenes 4 mm. long, gray mottled with
dusky, pubescent near the summit also with a few scattered
hairs. Pappus of two lanceolate awns, cansecent and splintered
into sharp teeth, at least at the broadened base. Chaff canese-
cent at the summit and toothed. The plant comes nearest to
Hf. tuberosus subcanescens.
Type specimens numbers 5384 (2 sheets), Sept. 12, 1910,
and 581674, Sept. 16,1913. Red Cloud, Nebraska, within the
city limits. Another Red Cloud sheet (Nos S3Gieisepirts:
1904,) differs in having larger leaves the upper few alternate,
the bracts longer and acuminate and less canescent. It is es-
sentially the same. The first collection, No. 1990, was made
at Callaway, Custer County, 125 miles northwest, Sept. 9, 1901.
It has longer bracts and narrower scales and a few more rays
but is mostly like the type. I have been for twelve years try-
ing to make it fit some description in the Manuals. Dr. Britton
and Dr. Rydberg, to whom I carried it in October, 1913, say
they have seen nothing like it. I have named it in honor of
Dr. Charles E. Bessey of the University of Nebraska who has
been my inspiration for twenty-five years.
If this should prove to be a hybrid, it would likely come
from H. tuberosus and AH. hirsutus trachyphyllus. The former
is here; the latter I have been unable to find though attributed
to Nebraska. It 1s not unlikely that some form of the present
species has been confounded with the variety.. Dr. H. Hape-
man of Minden has collected on the Platte some forms that ap-
proximate the present species as well as several other evident
hybrids. They will be studied intensely in the near future, as
larger collections are made in full flower and fruit.
PAPER AND PAPER STOCK
EW people realize that the preservation of our forests is
strictly a commercial matter. So long as wood continues
cheaper than brick, stone, or concrete, just so long will we con-
tinue to build with wood. If paper can be manufactured from
wood pulp cheaper than from other kinds of paper stock, we
shall continue to cut down our forests and run them through
the pulp mills. The following article, taken from a paper-
maker’s circular, throws an interesting light on the subject.
In the earlier days of the paper industry the raw materials
used were linen and cotton rags, but with the growth of popula-
tion and the spread of education it soon became apparent that all
the rags in the world could not make a tithe of the paper supply
required by man, and therefore peat, straw—bleached and un-
bleached—esparto grass from Spain and northern Africa, were
introduced and speedily found their place as the basis of more
or less expensive grades. It was not, however, until attention
was called to the fact that cellulose could be obtained from
wood that paper-making reached its final and greatest develop-
ment. A supply of raw material was thus provided, apparently
inexhaustible, cheap, and equal in quality to all but the very
highest grade of rags; and thus great newspapers, magazines,
and editions of books were made immediately possible for the
first time.
During the past five years the acceleration in the rate of
consumption has been so great as to make it apparent that no
natural resource of the world could indefinitely supply the de-
mand for a paper-making material—this in spite of the fact
that the amount of wood used in the manufacture of paper is
20 — THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
only about 5 per cent of the total annual cut. There has been
in consequence an eager search instituted for other sources of
supply of pulp and attention naturally turned to corn-stalks,
bagasse, (the pulp remaining after the juice is pressed from
sugar cane), cotton-stalks, and cotton-seed hulls. There is an
unlimited supply of these substances, but each of them has some
radical manufacturing defect which prevents it from supplant-
ing wood as our chief source of supply.
At present it would cost more per pound to make white
paper from any one of them than from wood. Cornstalks, in-
deed, make a very good grade of white book paper, and there
exists an absolutely unlimited supply compared to present con-
sumption. This supply is, of course, renewed annually, and is
a by-product of one of the world’s great staple food plants.
Moreover, there is a valuable pith obtained from the cornstalks
which is used in calking battle-ships, and a cattle food may also
be obtained at the time of making it into pulp. Why, then,
cannot paper be made from this material and the destruction
of our forests entirely stopped, at least so far as their use for
producing paper pulp is concerned? The answer is a purely
commercial one—it costs more to make this same grade of
paper from cornstalks; and therefore a paper can never be
made from them until the cost of wood rises above that of pro-
ducing pulp from cornstalks. This will not occur very soon,
as the cost of wood pulp, in spite of its alarming scarcity in this
country is held down by competition in various foreign coun-
tries where wood is still very plentiful and where labor, the
largest item in the expense of pulp making, is very much
cheaper than in the United States.
In addition to the above must be cited the expense of as-
sembling the cornstalks over enormously large areas as com-
pared to wood, the extra cost for freight, and the final and
fatal defect—that is, a yield of only about 300 pounds of com-
mercial pulp from a ton of stalks, whereas a ton of spruce
EEE PAVE RICAN BOLANIST: 21
wood, properly manipulated, will yield approximately 1200
pounds of pulp; and this with far less expenditure of chemicals,
labor, plant, and steam. The above objections practically
cover the production of pulp from the other possible materials
named :bagasse, cornstalks, cotton-seed hulls, and all other sub-
stances which have been offered as substitutes for pulp.
TRICARPELLARY ASH-FRUITS
By CHARLES E. BESSEY.
OR some years I have noticed that certain green ash trees
(Fraxinus pennsylvanica) in Lincoln regularly bear a
few tricarpellary fruits. Careful estimates show that three to
four per cent of the samaras of some
trees are tricarpellary instead. of bi-
carpellary as they should be normally.
The accompanying outline drawings
will show what these tricarpellary
ims ane Pike, especially the cross-
section of the wing position, shown be-
tween the samaras. Occasionally I
have found two seeds in these abnormal
samaras, but this is by no means common. Furthermore I
have observed that tricarpellary fruits occur only on trees with
long, narrow-winged samaras, and that they are never present
where the wings are short and broad.
Probably this is a case of reversion, since it is certain that
in the ancestral line preceding the ashes not so very far, the
pistils had more than two carpels. It would be interesting to
plant these tricarpellary fruits and see whether there is any
tendency toward an increase in their numbers.
ADDITIONAL NOTES ON NEW FORMS
OF RUDBECKIA
By Stewart H. BuRNHAM.
N the November, 1913, number of the American Botanist,
the editor published a very interesting article on “The Pro-
duction of New Forms of Rudbeckia.” One of the new forms,
Rudbeckia hirta var. bicolor Clute was found several years ago
in July, by Dr. Chas. H. Peck, the veteran State Botamist of
New York, who mentions such a plant in his Remarks and
Observations of the New York State Museum Report (27 :30.
1894. Bot. ed)’ Dr. Peck says: “Rudbeckia hiniasigws «roca
with the lower half of the rays of a beautiful brown color
occurs at Middle Grove,” Saratoga county. “Mrs. Anthony
sends the same form from Gouverneur.” The specimens are
preserved in the State Herbarium at Albany = andmOingzeck
wrote on the label an herbarium name, calling the plants
var. bicolor, although he never published the name.
In the Lake George region of New York, the Black-eyed
Susan is known as the Yellow Daisy, and is usually considered
a weed. It was probably introduced into this section about
1856 in grass-seed. Double flowered plants were found on the
shores of Lake George in 1900 by the late Dr. George D. Hulst
of Brooklyn: and five years later I found a plant with similar
flowers at Vaughns north of Hudson Falls. During July,
1897, a curious quilled-rayed plant was found in a meadow at
Vaughns: a form which might be characterized as:
Rudbeckia hirta var. tubuliforme n. var. Like the type,
except the ray flowers are tubular, very slender, 1/3-2/3 inches
leng, 2-5 lobed. Type in my collection.
Ethan RICAN BOIANIST 23
[It appears that Dr. Peck and the editor of this magazine
are not the only ones who have been attracted by the variations
of color in Rudbeckia hirta. As a matter of fact, such varia-
tions appear to be fairly common if one may judge from the
number of people reporting them. So far as we can discover,
the first mention of the forms in print was in Meehans
Monthly for 1891 where several notes mention the two-colored
form as if it were a newly discovered variation. In 1893 Miss
Florence Beckwith published in the “Proceedings of the
Rochester Academy of Science’ a note on the occurrence of
several varieties near Rochester, New York, accompanied by
a plate showing no less than seven different forms. All these,
it may be of interest to note, can be matched by forms growing
in the editor’s garden. Miss Beckwith later listed the bicolored
form in-her “Flora of Monroe County, N. Y.” but without
name. The form has not escaped an earlier name, however,
for in the “Sixth Annual Report of the Michigan Academy of
Science,’ published in 1904, Mr. O. A. Farwell described and
named the plant as follows: “Rudbeckia hirta L. var. pul-
cherrima. A form that differs from the species in having a
part of the upper surface of the ray, or even the whole face,
brown purple.” In letters recently received, Mr. Farwell states
that while his variety is based on the two forms recently
described as bicolor and rubra, both forms being mounted on
the same type sheet, he has always considered the two-colored
form to be typical of the name pulcherrima. Since it 1s appar-
ent that both forms are distinct enough to deserve’ being sep-
arately named, it may be well to apply the name pulcherrima to
the form previously known as bicolor leaving rubra to stand for
the brownish-red form. It may be noted, however, that both
Mr. Farwell and the editor have described these plants as
varieties. Should some enterprising name tinker wish to re-
duce them to forms, then by the absurd rules that govern such
cases in botanical nomenclature, new names may be given the
plants and both rubra, bicolor and pulcherrima be relegated to
synonomy.—Ed. |
InN.
NOTE and COMMENT
SS ne,
DousLe Hepaticas.—There is probably no more variable
plant in North America than the hepatica. Its flowers are of
every shade of color from white to deep blue or pink and they
vary as widely in the size of the blossoms and in the number of
colored parts, or sepals. Moreover, though the botanical
manuals record two species—Hepatica triloba and H. acutiloba
—they all qualify the statement by adding that these two
species intergrade and one is warranted in the inference that
some of the plants are therefore neither one species nor the
other. Ordinarily there are from five to seven sepals in each
flower, though it is not difficult to find blossoms with twelve or
more. From such semi-double flowers it is possible to produce
specimens that are really double, and one nurseryman is now
offering pink-flowered plants of this kind. It is likely that any
given color of hepatica flowers can be very much improved by
cultivation and those with a taste for such work may find here
a subject for experiment already much advanced by nature. The
fact that new strains may have a cash value should not be over-
looked. The abundance of the hepatica in almost any locality
gives wide scope for selection and further facilitates the pro-
duction of new forms.
EXPERIMENTS IN PHOTOSYNTHESIS.—The time honored
method of showing the evolution of gas in photosynthesis, and
of securing enough of this gas for a test, consists in inverting
a short-stemmed glass funnel over a quantity of aquatic vege-
tation in a jar of water and inverting a test tube filled with
water over the stem of the funnel... As the gas is evolved it
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
w
Or
rises through the stem of the funnel and displaces the water in
the test tube. This method is often quite slow, several days
sometimes being required to catch a test tube of the gas.
Harry B. Heimburger, of DePauw University, seems to have
discovered an improvement on this method, in which, by using
land plants as a source of the gas, he is able to secure from
sixty to eighty cubic centimeters of gas in four hours, a much
greater quantity than could be secured from water plants in the
same time. The specimens which gave the best results were
young shoots of the sweet clover with approximately 100
leaves, but catnip leaves are known to be nearly as good, and
even red clover, wild lettuce dnd burdock may be used. By
this method sufficient gas may be secured for a test “while you
wait.” When leaves of land plants are used, however, it has
been found necessary to add carbon dioxide to the water.
This is accomplished by placing some chips of limestone or
marble in a test tube and covering them with hydrochloric acid.
The gas evolved may be led into the water by means of a glass
or rubber tube, care being taken to prevent the carbon dioxide
from bubbling up beneath the glass funnel. The whole per-
formance, of course, should be carried on in sunlight.
OstrRICH FERN RENAMED.—Some years ago, when L. M.
Underwood dug up the long buried name of Matteucia and ap-
plied it to the well-known ostrich fern, there was considerable
protest, for the plant had so long been known as Onoclea or
Strutliopteris that a change of names seemed quite unneces-
sary. Besides, the name of Struthiopteris which had always
before been connected with the fern either as a generic or spe-
cific designation, is usually translated as meaning “ostrich
fern” and thus had a double right to stand as the name of this
fern. It now appears that the fern.is not to rest under the
genus name of Matteucia; at least a still older name for the
plant has been found. J. A. Nieuwland has recently shown
that Rafinesque earlier named the fern Prerctis and 1f the name
tinkerers are either logical or sincere, they will, of course, at
26 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
once take up the new name. Nuieuwland, however, seems to
have some doubts of such proceedings, for he says: “Now that
Pteretis is found to antedate Matteucia, we wonder whether it
will be found worthy or acceptable in spite of its priority. We
have seen so many cases, lately, of rejected names boasting
priority since 1753 that we feel that all the much-vaunted state-
ments of fealty to the fetich of priority are meaningless noise
or waste of good type space.”
New Ways oF NAMING PLANTS.—One sometimes won-
ders what the leaders of the “amiable science’ would do were
it not for the changing styles in nomenclature. Botany, how-
ever, can never be monotonous when a new way of naming
plants, with consequent changes in the author citation, 1s in-
vented every few years. Once it was the rule to give each dis-
tinct species two names, one generic and one specific. Plants
that differed slightly from the species were called varieties and
catalogued under the species, often without a distinct appela-
tion. But just as in the business world where success in an
undertaking often depends upon the utilization of the waste
products, so in botany the waste left after making species, upon
being worked over, has given rise to several new industries and
made the workers more or less famous. First of all, the old
species have been carefully re-examined to separate them from
any clinging particles of botanical waste and the residue has
been clarified and sorted into sub-species, races, varieties,
forms, mutants, elementary species, and gardeners varieties.
Even the species have been carefully refined and representa-
tives appear as types, co-types, paratypes and some others. But
the real industry arises from the lesser forms. There is now
the sub-species which is regarded as pretty nearly a species and
is given three-technical names, generic, specific and subspecific.
A variety also has three names with “‘var.” written before the
last one. This 1s supposed to distinguish it from a sub-species.
Iorms are written like varieties with “f” or “forma” before the
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
we
~
third word, though how a form differs from a variety one
searches the dictionary in vain to discover. This shows, for
one thing, how much the lexicographers have yet to learn from
the botanists. As a matter of fact the “form” seems to repre-
sent an entity a little less stable than a variety; that is, 1f we
describe them they are varieties; if the other fellow names them
they are forms. Recently one more catagory has arisen to
puzzle us. This is the mutation usually abbreviated to “mut.”
Thus we read of Oenothera bienms mut. lata and the like.
Practically all varieties are now regarded as being mutations,
however, and in view of this fact we wonder whether it is not
possible that that “mut.” has lost a final t and properly belongs
to the author citation instead of to the plant.
BotrycHiumM DicHRONUM A SyNonym.—lIn a recent
publication from the United States National Herbarium, Ivar
Tidestrom comes to the conclusion that the form of Botry-
chium which has been named B. dichronum is a distinct species
but that it 1s not entitled to the name owing to an earlier name
applied to it. The writer of this note collected the specimens
upon which B. dichronum is based and he is one of the very
few living collectors who have seen the fern growing. He has
examined many of the ferns in their native haunts and 1s still
firmly convinced that the plant differs from our common form
so slightly as to scarcely entitle it to be called a variety. The
most noticeable difference between the rattlesnake fern (Botry-
chium Virginianum) and the so-called Botrychium dichronum
is the possession of a second sterile frond by the latter. The
writer first pointed out that this second, apparently sterile frond
is in reality the fertile frond of the previous year, from which
the spore-bearing part has fallen. Numbers of specimens were
examined and all bore evidence of having once borne sporo-
“phylls. In this plant, as in all other herbaceous ferns, the
spore-bearing parts are short-lived in comparison with the
sterile portions and in warmer parts of the world the sterile
28 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
parts are hardy enough to persist until a new frond is spread.
This seems hardly difference enough to entitle such a plant to
be considered a distinct species if the plant in question is to
be called a species, it should, according to Tidestrom, be called
Botrychium cicutarwm. The writer is of the opinion, however,
that it will ultimately find a place in fern lists as Botrychium
Virginianum var. dichronum or B. V. var. cicutarwm.
CoLor-BLinpD Bres.—The sun sends to us across the
boundless regions of space, a vast number of waves of different
length, but in all this number the human eye can distinguish
barely an octave—some seven groups which we know as red,
orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet rays. Below the
red rays are other rays which, though invisible, may be de-
tected by proper means. Similarly beyond the violet rays are
other rays that affect the photographer’s plate, but which, so
far as the eye is concerned, might as well not exist. In work-
ing out our theories of vision it is possible that we have not
taken account of all the facts. With regard to insects and
flowers, for instance, it is quite possible that the insects can see
very different colors in the flowers from those we perceive.
As a matter of fact, it is now known that bees are color blind
for some of the colors we can perceive. A German scientist
‘has recently shown that bees cannot distinguish between red
and black. Experiments seem to show, also, that these insects
are insensible to certain shades of blue-green which are comple-
mentary to red. Blue and yellow, however, are easily recog-
nized. This latter fact probably accounts for the reported fond-
ness of bees for blue flowers. In the matter of the preferences
of bees for color, however, one should not proceed too rapidly.
It must not be forgotten that the bee does not depend entirely
upon color in hunting food. The sense of smell is known to be
well developed and the bee doubtless usually “follows her
nose.” Nectar-yielding flowers, though concealed from sight,
are readily found by bees and so are other flowers from which
the showy petals and other parts have been removed.
THe AMERICAN BOTANIST 29
A NEw Orcuip Boox.—Miss Grace Greylock Niles of 71
West 116 Street, New York, author of several botanical works
and writer of the article on Cypripediums which appeared in
our November number, plans soon to issue a volume on the
“Native Orchids of North America,” and requests notes on the
species from all interested. She especially desires information
on varietal forms, albinos, and new stations for rare species.
In this connection Miss Caroline G. Soule calls attention to the
fact that Miss Niles omitted the white form of Cypripedium
acaule from her article in this magazine. Miss Soule says: “‘It
was quite common in Shelbourne, N. H., last summer and
several specimens were brought to me, though Gray says ‘rarely
white. It was an unusually cold season there and the Cypri-
pediums were blooming the last week in June.”
Rep FLoweErRED WitcH HazeL_.—The yellow color of
many flowers is known to be only a weaker form of a pigment
which otherwise would make the flowers red. It is therefore
not surprising to find a yellow-flowered form of a plant with
normally red blossoms, in fact the yellow forms of either red
fruits or flowers may be looked upon as analogous to albinos.
White-flowered forms of normally yellow species are prac-
tically unknown, though there may be varieties with flowers
of a dirty or creamy white. In many yellow flowers, however,
there seems to be a tendency to increase the pigment and thus
produce red flowers. One might almost say that we are likelier
to be able to produce a red flower from a yellow one than we
are to produce a pure white flower from such a form. A point
is given to these observations by the fact that specimens of the
witch hazel (Hamamelis Virginiana) have been reported in
which the flowers are red. The witch hazel blooms at the end
of the year when flowers of any kind are rare and flowering
shrubs especially so. Even the common form is of decorative
value and the red-flowered specimens ought to be doubly at-
tractive.
30 THE AMERICAN BOTAMNIST
GERMINATION OF THE COCKLEBUR.—The fruits of the
common cocklebur or clotbur (Xanthium) have afforded the
scientists no end of opportunities for conjecture in regard to
the way the seeds germinate. In each bur there are two seeds,
one slightly higher than the other, and the botanist who orig-
inally tackled the problem assumed that only the lower one
grew the first year and thus arrived at the conclusion that this
was a provision of nature for accomplishing a distribution of
the seeds in time, by giving the species two chances for growth
in any region where a fruit happens to fall. Later, another
worker arrived at the conclusion that the delay in germination
of the upper seed of each fruit was due to a lack of oxygen,
the seed-coats being so impervious to this gas that not until
decay breaks through the seed coat is the plantlet within set
free. This has continued to be the opinion up to the present
time, but Prof. John H. Schaffner now reports that last sum-
mer, along Lake Erie, he found an abundance of sprouting
cockleburs in which both seeds had produced new plants. This »
is rather negative evidence, to be sure, but in a measure it dis-
poses of the previous theories. Probably the high temperatures
at which the seeds grow best has as great an effect on their
sprouting as the lack of oxygen.
FERN PROTHALLIA AND DroutH.—Although ferns are
supposed to be inhabitants of moist and shady places, a large
number grow on rocks where they are often exposed to the
direct rays of the sun and occasionally subjected to long periods
of drouth. It is something of a mystery, even to the botanist.
how such plants go so long without moisture and still survive.
but in most cases they manage to do it, doubtless having some-
thing of the vitality of the mosses, many of which are able to
vegetate again after almost complete dessication. In the case
of the fern a further complication is added to the question by
the fact that the beginning or prothallial stage of the plant is a
thin green scale, one cell thick, and almost microscopic in size,
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST Sil
which in other ferns, at least, is apparently dependent upon a
continuous supply of moisture. Until recently, it has been 1m-
possible to say whether the prothallia of rock-loving ferns were
able to endure drying like the mosses or not since no attention
appears to have been given to this phase of fern study, but
F. L. Pickett has now made some experiments with the
prothallia of the walking fern (Camptosorus rhizophyllus)
which seem to prove that even this microscopic plant can endure
long periods of drouth unharmed. Full grown prothallia were
exposed to dry air for from one to two months and came
through in good condition. That all fern prothallia are not
able to do so was shown by the behavior of some prothallia of
the ostrich fern which under similar conditions died after an
exposure of two days. The walking fern inhabits the drier
ledges of limestone rocks and the ability of its youthful stages
to resist drouth has no doubt been an important factor in the
occupation of its habitat.
VALUE OF NoveELties.—lIt is a mistake to suppose that
plant forms are fixed or stationary. New and superior varie-
ties are constantly appearing, often in the wild but probably
more frequently among the specimens of the nurseryman and
gardener since cultivation seems to have a tendency to favor
variation. If the discoverer of such forms will take the trouble
to preserve and further improve them, he may often find him-
self possessed of plants with considerable monetary value. In-
stances of plants that have appeared in the wild and _ subse-
quently won great favor in our gardens, have been mentioned
recently in this magazine. A much longer list, beginning with
Burbank’s novelties, could be made of those forms that have
originated in cultivation, for Burbank is only one of a great
number engaged’ in improving plants. Any seedsman’s cata-
logue will show many forms originated by others. In many
cases these forms have appeared unexpectedly, exactly as the
new forms growing wild have done, but often, also, they have
32 THE AMERICAN BOTANISA
been produced by crossing and in other ways. As to the value
of such forms, a prominent nurseryman who has had a number
of successes in this line, writes that a single novelty, the May-
flower tomato, brought him in $500, a new garden pea brought
$200 and the dealer who bought it added $100 more for the
privilege of naming it. Another pea, called the market garden
pea, brought nearly as much. It is said that Burbank got his
start in his chosen work by means of the Burbank potato which
he sold for $500. Of course the dealers why buy such novel-
ties expect to get their money back by selling the new plants
at an advance in price. Almost every plant catalogue that ap-
pears has one or more pages devoted to novelties of this kind.
When Pringle’s American Triumph oats came out, one dealer
by rapidly accumulating stock sold more than a thousand
bushels at an advanced price, in Europe.
New Form oF YELLOW VioLet.—The violets have been
pretty well dissected during the past decade. The 6th edition
of “Gray's Manual” listed nineteen species and six varieties;
the recent edition of the “Illustrated Flora” includes forty-nine
species and no varieties, these latter having apparently all been
promoted to specific rank. One form seems to have been
missed, however. We have received from Miss Nell McMur-
ray, New Washington, Pa., a form of the stemmed yellow
violet in which the leaves are completely sessile. The species
of which this is an interesting form or variety, is the one
formerly called Viola pubescens var. scabriutscula but which
more recently has been known as l’. scabriuscula. We say “has
been known” for we are now asked to call the plant Viola
erlocarpa. The new form might be called lV’. eriocarpa var.
sessilis. The name makes a handle to the plant, as it were, and
will do very well for future scientists to wrangle over, so we
will just tuck it away in this paragraph for the delectation of
the next generation of name tinkerers. The plants are much like
ordinary yellow violets except for the rather spoon-shaped
leaves which clasp the stems so closely as to seem almost
perfoliate.
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 33
FERNS OF THE INDIANA SAnD Dunes.—In the February,
1913, issue of the American Botanist, Edwin D. Hull notes the
finding by him of a single immature plant of the ebony spleen-
wort (Asplemum platyneuron) in Porter County, Indiana, on
October 12, 1912. On the same day, the writer was in the same
region with Dr. H. S. Pepoon of Chicago, and Professor
Umbach and his son, of Naperville. One of the particular
pleasures of that delightful day’s outing was the visit to a
thriving colony of ebony spleenworts. The colony was dis-
covered by Dr. Pepoon on Novy. 11, 1911, while exploring in
the vicinity of Mount Tom. The spleenworts were associated
with a numerous colony of Christmas ferns (Polystichum
acrostichoides). The specimens found were perfect, with
abundant fruiting fronds upwards of 12 inches high. They
were located on a north slope, and were in such numbers that
no effort was made to count them. On the same day we dis-
covered two fine plants of Botrychium obliquum, var. dissectum,
growing on the roadside at the edge of a ditch partially filled
with running water. We also found a small colony of the
broad beech fern (Phegopteris hexagonoptera). Further ex-
plorations in this fascinating region will undoubtedly reveal
other colonies of rare ferns, and possibly other varieties not
before reported from this portion of Indiana.—Orpheus M.
Schants.
PinE Sap.—Indian pipes (Monotropa uniflora) are
among the common flowers of the August woods. Usually
they are pure white though sometimes tinged with pink. I
have found two with a deep pink stem and bright red ovary
and two fresh plants with a dull blue stem and ovary. Last
summer I discovered two small colonies of pine sap (M. hypo-
pitys). At first I thought they must be yellowish Indian pipes,
but coming nearer, I saw instead of one, a cluster of five or
six little pipe-bowls at the summit of the stem. The little ones
nodded just as the big one nods when blooming. ‘The ciliate
stigma reminded me of a miniature fleabane head, with its
34 TEE AMERICAN -BOTLA NESE
yellow center surrounded by a fringe of fine white hairs.
Another interesting feature is the fact that the terminal flower
is largest and has five petals while the others have but four.—
Nell McMurray.
IRISES FOR WINTER BLoomMiInG.—The irises with bulbous
underground parts, such as the Spanish and English irises,
have become in recent years part of the florist’s stock in trade.
Like other bulbs, they may be induced to bloom in the green-
house, and the flowers may usually be had in the markets
shortly after Christmas. The species with rootstocks instead
of bulbs, however, are seldom if ever forced, probably because
the plants make considerable leaf growth before the flowers
appear and the grower cannot afford the time necessary for
these purely vegetative processes. Some of the earlier irises,
however, such as /ris pumila, I. chamaeirts, I. cristata, and
I. verna, which produce their flowers almost as soon as the
leaves begin to grow, may readily be brought into flower; in
fact, there are few plants that will bloom with less attention.
Apparently all they need is to be subjected to freezing tem-
peratures for some time, and if they are then removed to a
moderately warm place they soon produce their flowers. Plants
may be dug up after the middle of December, and if watered
and set in a cellar window will come into bloom in less than
amonth. They need not be-brought into the living rooms until
in full bloom. Certain strains of Iris pumila are strongly
fragrant which gives them an added charm. The early irises
multiply so rapidly that one always has a surplus that may be
forced in this way. After flowering, the leaves do not become
“drawn” and flaccid as with so many plants, and their cheerful
green continues for a long time to give a semblance of spring
to the window garden.
A New PHLOX FOR THE GARDEN.—For more than a
generation, a silvery-lavender phlox has been known to _ bot-
anists from the sand dune region south of Lake Michigan, but
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
wwe
Ot
because of its superficial resemblance to Phlox pilosa, it failed
to receive a name until distinguished by the editor of this
magazine. The fact that it is taller, greener, later, and more
floriferous that Phlox pilosa seems never to have been taken
into. consideration, though the blossoms, so different in color
from those of other phloxes, have always made it conspicuous
and botanists have reported it again and again. Like Phlox
pilosa this species has shown remarkable capacity for enduring
drouth; in fact, specimens dug from a dry soil and carried all
day without water, with the temperature in the nineties, came
through all right when planted. The plant responds readily to
good treatment and when removed to the garden produces a
profusion of its starry blossoms in late May or early June.
The first flowers are usually in time for Decoration Day, a
season when flowers of their color are in demand, and if the
plant is cut back after blooming, it will produce new flowering
branches until heavy autumn frosts spoil the blossoms. Recog-
nizing the desirability of a wide distribution of the plant, the
entire stock has been sold to the well known firm of Thomas
Meehan & Sons, of Germantown, Philadelphia, who will offer
it to the public next spring under the name of Phlox argillacea.
The Meehans have always shown a commendable disposition
to secure new and interesting plants for decorative planting and
their catalogues always contain a number of species to be ob-
tained nowhere else.
UN
EDITORIAL
ne,
In the midst of the great activity that at present character-
izes agriculture, forestry, horticulture, plant breeding, land-
scape gardening, and other subjects relating to plants, the
science of botany, the study of the plants, themselves, remains
practically at a standstill. The science has formed one of the
subjects taught in all good high schools for several generations
but the number of people interested in plants as plants has not
noticeably increased. It is certainly a deplorable fact that on
a continent containing more than a hundred million people
besides Mexicans, the best botanical journals cannot command
a circulation of as much as 2,000 copies. Agriculture, horti-
culture, and forestry we must have because they are necessary
to nourish, clothe and shelter our race, but it is no credit to our
intellectual. attainments that the science of botany is so little
valued.
All children love flowers and are interested in their habits,
uses and curious forms. Why is it, then, that when they have
grown up they have no taste for, or interest in, the plants?
Probably it is because the high schools pretty effectually take
their childish interests out of them. When one has had the dry
bones of a science drummed into him for a yearjor so; he 1s
usually glad to quit. It was in no jesting spirit that the small
girl said she “liked everything about plants except botany.”
It is hoped that the dissatisfaction with the conduct of our
schools so generally expressed at present may result in such
adjustments of the course as to make botany foster an interest
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 37
in plants instead of producing a distaste for further study as
soon as examinations are safely passed. The lives of most of
us are spent surrounded by plants and every intelligent person
ought to be interested in them.
sn ek
There.seem to be several reasons why the usual high
school course in botany does not give a better account of itself,
but the two most important reasons are undoubtedly the high
school board and the teacher. Boards of education still class
botany with chemistry and physics and assume that if one can
be taught successfully in a class room the others can be. When
they have supplied a botanical laboratory with plenty of glass-
ware, microscopes, section-cutters, and staining media, they
feel that they have properly equipped the school for the study
of plants. It never enters the heads of school directors that
plants are really alive and to be of much interest to young
students must be studied in the living state out of doors.
People flock to our botanical gardens and public conservatories,
but they seldom become excited over jars of pickled specimens
or the remains of plants stuck to herbarium sheets.
3 eee
The teacher of botany seems even more to blame than the
school board. Asa general thing he is teaching botany because
there is nobody else to conduct the course. Knowing little
about the subject he is totally unable to induce the school board
to grant him better conditions. The botanical course still con-
sists, in too many cases, of recitations on the terms used in
systematic botany, followed by the pressing of a definite num-
ber of p!ant tops, identified by looking up the common names in
the index to the “Manual.” Is it any wonder that the student
gets little inspiration from such study for further investiga-
tions? There are at least ten thousand teachers of botany in
this country, but not a tenth of them subscribe for, or read, the
botanical publications. And if they read any botanical book
except the text used with the class, it is almost certainly a book
38 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
that has been sent them, gratis, by the publishers. This is
probably the gravest charge that can be brought against the
teacher. Who would employ a physician who did not keep up
to date in his information? Who would take a case to a law-
yer who did not keep in mind the run of new laws and recent
court decisions. And yet, all too frequently, we send our chil-
dren to be taught by persons who regard their college diploma
as a license to stop thinking. Before botany comes into its own,
we shall have to have better teachers, better books, better
methods, and outdoor laboratories. The study must be given
some vital connection with life.
BOOKS AND WRITERS
A new monthly botanical journal with the title of The
American Journal of Botany is announced. It will be the of-
ficial publication of the Botanical Society of America and will
be published in conjunction with that society by the Brooklyn
Botanical Garden. The Botanical Society of America contains
several eminent botanists and the magazine ought to fila place
in botanical literature not attained by other publications.
One after another the flowers of the old fashioned garden
have been taken in hand by the florist and made to produce a
wealth of varieties undreamed of a few years ago. Sweet peas,
peonies, irises, phloxes, dahlias and many others have gone
through this process and at present the gladiolus is being de-
veloped in the same way. The original wild plant seems to
have been a red-flowered form of no unusual beauty, but the
modern: flowers are extremely handsome and of every shade of
color save a pronounced blue and florists do not despair of
securing this, ultimately. Enough interest in these flowers has
developed to warrant the publication of a magazine devoted
especially to them. This is The Modern Gladiolus Grower,
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 39
issued monthly at Calcium, New York, which is designed to
throw a strong light on the subject.
After fourteen years’ work as the editor of the Nature and
Science Department of St. Nicholas, Dr. Edward F. Bigelow
has decided to combine his nature interests and will hereafter
conduct a similar department in his own publication, The Guide
to Nature. Dr. Bigelow is a live individual and may be de-
pended upon to do something out of the ordinary in all that he
attempts. The story of his founding a school of nature study
at Sound Beach, Conn., is well known and we are glad to note
these further activities in promoting a study of nature.
Percy E. Rowell, whose “Introduction to General Science”’
has had a second printing, has planned a series of four more
elementary texts on the same general subject, the first of which,
entitled “Science for the Fifth Grade’ has recently appeared.
In this book, nearly 100 topics, taken mostly from physics and
chemistry, are discussed and experiments to illustrate them out-
lined. The reviewer questions whether fifth grade students
can apprehend much of the work outlined. An intelligent
teacher, however, should be-able to select many that might be
used, though in view of the number of other studies now being
loaded on these small students one sometimes wonders how
time is to be secured for the essentials. The book is published
by the author at Berkeley, Calif., at 60 cents.
To one who would thoroughly understand the life pro-
cesses of plants a knowledge of chemistry is indispensible. A
Plane is mot the inert object it often appears to be; in fact,
probably a greater number of chemical reactions go on in plants
than in the bodies of animals. Unfortunately the kind of
chemistry offered in the average school is not calculated to
enable students to investigate the problems of biological chem-
istry, and to supply this lack, Paul Haas and T. G. Hill have
brought out an “Introduction to the Chemistry of Plant
Products.” It may be said at the outset that the book some-
40 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
what belies its title of an introduction, for one with no knowl-
edge of chemistry will certainly need an introduction to it.
This, however, is no drawback in the book since it allows the
authors to plunge at once into the more technical part of the
subject. The book is divided into nine sections devoted re-
spectively to Fats and Oils, Carbohydrates, Glucosides, Tan-
nins, Pigments, Nitrogen Bases, Colloids, Proteins and
Enzymes. The substances belonging to these groups are dis-
cussed extensively as to their occurrence, preparation, proper-
ties, reactions and mictochemical and other tests. The authors
have consulted the very considerable literature of the subject
and condensed the information into a form that should be of
much assistance to the chemist or botanist pursuing studies of
this kind. The book is an octavo of 400 pages and is published
by Longman, Green & Co., New York.
If we are to believe the literateurs, the English novel was
originally a three volume affair, but the honor of making a
three volume garden book seems to belong solely to Abram
Linwood Urban whose “Voice of the:'Garden ands iy
Garden of Dreams,” already issued form two books in a cycle
of three, the last one entitled “Garden Philosophy” being in an
advanced stage of preparation. .Here the resemblance to a
three-volume novel ends, for the books are most interesting and
entertaining volumes dealing with a phase of nature that is as
yet barely touched upon in America. They are not books about
plants, but books filled with the thoughts which plants suggest
—the kind of books that the reviewer would like to write if he
took up the subject of gardens. “The Voice of the Garden”
consists of five chapters and the “Garden of Dreams”’ has about
twice as many. Both books are illustrated by photographs and
by decorations made by the author’s daughter; Miss Grace
Lillian Urban. Such titles of chapters'as Art im tie Garden:
One's Own Garden and My Garden In Winter, selected at ran-
dom will give an idea of their scope. The publishers have
given the text an appropriate and beautiful setting which does
much to foster the good impression made by the author. The
books are published by Thomas Meehan and Sons, German-
town, Pa. .The price of each volume is $1.00)
OW A
Vol. 20. No. 2 Whole Number 101
MERICAN
OTANIST
MAY, 1914
Ax\S0 nian Insti
va eae ag ay
pS ‘hy
‘A
25 Gents a Copy; $1.00 a Year
WILLARD N. CLUTE & CO.
JOLIET, ILLINOIS
The American Botanist
A Quarterly Journal of Economic & Ecological Botany
WILLARD N. CLUTE, EDITOR
SUBSCRIPTIONS.—The subscription price of this magazine is $1.00 a
year or $1.50 for two years, payable strictly in advance. Personal checks
on small or distant banks must contain ten cents for collection fees. The
magazine is issued on the 20th of February, May, August and November,
BACK NUMBERS.—Volumes 1 to 10 inclusive consists of 6 numbers
each, Vols. 11 to 13 of 5 numbers each and all later volumes of 4 numbers
each. The first 18 volumes may be had for 75 cents a volume, or the set
will be sent for $9.00. A full set contains 2312 pages.
THE FERN BULLETIN
In 1913, at the completion of its twentieth volume, The Fern Bulletin was consoli-
dated with this magazine. The back volumes average more than 100 pages each, and
since they cover the entire formative period of American Fern study they are invaluable
for reference. The majority of new forms discovered in recent years have been
described in its pages. First six volumes out of print. A set of vols. 7 to 20 will be sent
for $7.00. A sample volume, our selection for 40 cents. An extended description of the
contents of the volumes may be had for the asking.
WILLARD N. CLUTE & CO., PUBLISHERS
209 WHITLEY AVENUE, JOLIET, ILL.
ENTERED AS MAIL MATTER OF THE SECOND CLASS AT THE POST OFFICE, JOLIET, ILL.
The Guide to Nature
Edited by EDWARD F. BIGELOW
Is devoted to commonplace nature with uncommon
interest. It will cost you but ten cents to get a copy
and let it tell its own story.
The Agassiz Association, Inc., is the oldest and
largest organization for the study of all nature. It
consists of Members and Chapters.
Full particulars free upon application.
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ULOY IIE preode OUT
ve
THe AMERICAN BOTANIST
VOED XX JOLIE Wek. MAY, 1914 Nor
Stow various greens tn fatnt degrees
Oinge the tall groups of many trees;
White careless of the changing year,
Ohe pine, cerulean, never sere,
Gowers distinguished from the rest,
Jind proudly vaunts his winter vest.
—Warton. agen ingt tug»
{fo -
THE BEECH FERNS \ ee AB 1014
. i co
By Wituarp N. CLUTE. “SHonal Muse
EGINNERS in fern study usually show a fondness for
those species that have sufficient individuality of form
to make their separation from other species easy, and are quite
willing to let the advanced students argue specific differences in
groups where the species all look pretty much alike and where
the decision may hang on some small difference in veining or
the nature of the glands on the indusium. The maidenhair,
the polypody, the cinnamon fern and the bracken are thus
among the first to be known but it is usually not long before
the beech ferns are added to the list if they happen to grow in
the collector’s region.
The two species of beech fern are at once easy to dis-
tinguish from other ferns but are themselves so much alike
that to distinguish them from each other requires a rather close
comparison. The student finds here an excellent exercise in
separating closely allied forms without the problem being com-
plicated by the suspicion that still other species may be confused
with them. With the exception of the much larger and coarser
©
42 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
bracken, these are the only common ferns with triangular
blades. To be sure some of the Botrychiums have triangular
blades, but these are not regarded as true ferns and, in any
event, may be distinguished immediately by the fact that their
spore cases are borne in panicles and not on the under side of
the fronds. Should there be any question as to whether a given
species is a beech fern or a young bracken, the method of bear-
ing spore-cases will settle the matter, the bracken bearing its
spore-cases 1n a continuous line on the margin of the pinnules
instead of scattered on the veins at some distance «rom the
margin.
To separate one species from the other is less easy; in
fact, the beginner is seldom sure which species he has collected
until he has a specimen of the other for comparison. Nature
seems to have been mindful of this confusion and has facili-
tated matters, somewhat, by giving each a slightly different
habitat. The broad beech fern (Phegopteris hexagonoptera)
usually inhabits dryish woods while the common beech fern
(Phegopteris polypodioides), whose vernacular name is rather
a misnomer, 1s a lover of moist rocks and 1s usually to be found,
when it occurs at all, on dripping ledges and in the spray of
waterfalls. The margins of the two habitats overlap some-
times, to be sure, but. when one finds a beech" tem im=shady
woods it 1s a safe guess that it 1s hexragonoptera, while if his
specimen comes from wet rocks it is pretty surely poly-
podioides.
A peculiarity of both beech ferns, but one tian i most
noticeable in polypodioides, is the way in which the lowest pair
of pinnae are deflexed. They point downward and forward at
a rather sharp angle which gives them a very charactenisie
appearance. when growing. The common beech fern also
carries its blade at a considerable angle to the stripe. Growing
as it does on ledges and in clefts of rock the blades thus are
brought parallel to the face of the cliff and are doubtless borne
at the proper angle for securing the light.
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 43
In separating these two species, as in separating other
ferns that are much alike, one must of course rely on smaller
differences than are taken into consideration in separating one
genus from another. Among the characteristics that are of
value in the present instance is the shape of the frond. In the
broad beech fern, this, as the name indicates, is rather wider
than long; in the other species, it is just the reverse. The pin-
The Broad Beech Fern inhab‘ts dryish woods.
nae also, are inclined to be broader in the plant of shady woods,
and they are likely to be more deeply lobed, especially the
lowest pair. Both species have glandular hairs on the blade
which give to each species a characteristic odor. A_ skilled
student can almost separate the two by his sense of smell, but
the novice will have to attend to all the peculiarities here given
and may then have to go to the books for the technical descrip-
tions if still undecided.
THE MINTS
By ADELLA PRESCOTT.
HE Mint family (Labiatae) is a large one and fortunately
for the human race is widely distributed. It certainly
has done much to make life worth living. The modern baby
may be ignorant of the taste of catnip tea but his parents and
grandparents know it well. It did much to relieve their in-
fantile woes and I am not sure but the modern baby and even
some children of larger growth—notably some of our eminent
statesmen—would find in a bowlful of catnip tea judiciously
sweetened and mellowed with cream a welcome relief from the
nervous strain of social life.
As the child of other days grew older, peppermint gave
relief to many a childish pain and in the form of pink and white
candies brightened long and prosy sermons. Sage shared with
saffron the honor of “bringing out” measles and other youthful
rashes and of still another mint only a Kentucky colonel could
speak in adequate terms of praise. Nor is usefulness their only
excuse for being, for some of them have much beauty and
pleasing fragrance.
While the mints are many and various, they are not diffi-
cult for even the amateur botanist to distinguish. When he
finds a plant with square stems and opposite aromatic leaves he
may quite safely decide that it is a mint. The flowers of these
plants have noticeable characteristics also. They have a more
or less well-marked two-lipped corolla with stamens diandrous
or didynamous; that is, in pairs or in two pairs of unequal
AoE AVE RC AaNe= BOA NIST 45
length. ‘There is a four-lobed ovary which forms in fruiting
four little nutlets surrounding the base of the single style. The
calyx is usually tubular or bell-shaped and the upper lip of the
corolla is two-lobed or entire, the lower lip three-lobed. The
flowers themselves are clustered in the axils of the leaves or in
terminal spikes or racemes. The foliage is dotted with minute
glands containing a volatile oil which gives the characteristic
warmth and aroma to the well known family.
While many of the species are natives of the United States,
those best known, namely, spearmint (Mentha viridis), pepper-
mint (M. Piperita), catnip (Nepeta cataria), and sage (Salvia
officinalis) are naturalized from Europe, having been chosen
for their virtues to accompany the Pilgrim Fathers (or more
likely Pilgrim Mothers) across the sea. But the beautiful
Oswego tea (Monarda didyma) with its showy heads of soft
yet bright red flowers and strongly aromatic leaves is a native
of our own meadows and many others less showy but not less
interesting may be found in our woods and fields. I once found
a single plant of balm (Melissa officinalis) which Gray says is
naturalized from Europe “and sparingly escaped from gar-
dens.” It was at a distance from any dwelling and the plant
was unknown in all that vicinity. It must have made its escape
early and covered its tracks well.
Other members of this family are the water hoarhound
(Lycopus sinuatus), Horsebalm (Collinsonia Canadensis),
pennyroyal (Hedceoma pulegioides), and the skull cap (Scutel-
laria), the latter with violet-blue flowers growing in terminal
racemes and easily identified by the curious little helmet-shaped
appendage on the back of the calyx. While these are but a few
of the many members of this family they are all easily identified
and will serve to fix the family characteristics in the mind of
the novice.
NATURE'S VACATION
By Dr. W. W. BatILevy.
ATURE, like her votaries, enjoys now and then a vaca-
tion. She has a long one, of course, in the winter, but
it is not generally appreciated that she also takes one in sum-
mer. After the first onrush of spring and the high-tide ver-
dancy of June, when every plant carries a flower, there comes
a partial rest. There is never, even in winter, a total suspen-
sion of activity, but there are these periods of ease.
In the early days of August, one unused to the woods
and misled by popular talk, is surprised to find few flowers in
the forest. At this season, indeed, one may walk long dis-
tances through the deeper woods without detecting a blossom.
Then, perhaps, he will begin to see the little cow-wheat
(Melampyrum), a very inconspicuous white and pale yellow
flower of the Figwort family (Scrophulariaceae). Small as it
is, the microscope reveals in it unsuspected beauties; indeed,
one of the marvels of nature is her regard for small things—
her finish. The minute is as carefully adorned as the immense;
an ice-crystal or a diatom as perfect as an iceberg or an Alp.
Cow-wheat, like many of its family, as Gerardia, Pedicu-
laris, Euphrasia and Castilleja, is suspected of cladestine para-
sitism; that is, it feeds by its roots on other plants and at the
same time puts forth its leaves with a tricky semblance of
legitimate support. It is but a step from this to the saprophyte,
a plant depending upon partially decayed organic matter. Such
plants, it will be seen, feed upon matter already prepared by
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 47
others and in a state of easy assimilation. Several like those
listed above are of high ordinal relations—aristocrats that have
betaken themselves to reprehensible practices.
In course of time, for some unknown reason, the sapro-
phyte has ceased to produce true leaves. It cannot, however,
The Indian Pipe or Corpse Plant,
entirely shake off hereditary attributes and so it exhibits in
place of these, certain functionless scales devoid of chlorophyll.
Its nutriment is absorbed entirely through the roots, or through
peculiar organs analagous thereto. It is now more than sus-
pected that the close relation between host and saprophyte is,
at least in some cases, beneficial to the former, a relation per-
48 , THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
haps not unlike that of the nitrogen-producing tubercles to
many leguminous plants.
Saprophytes, as Monotropa, Aphyllon, Coralorhiza, and
Epiphegus are white or pale in color. The peculiarity is thus
seen not to be a matter of family—in the above examples three
orders are represented: broom-rapes, heaths and orchids—but
of circumstance. Similar environment and conditions may
bring about like development.
Everyone familiar with the woods knows the indian pipe
(Vonotropa uniflora). It is less commonly called the corpse
plant. The application of the first name is obvious. The re-
semblance to a beautifully fashioned pipe is complete and won-
derfu'. The blackening as it dries 1s seen more or less in most
parasites, and indeed, is part of their diagnosis to the old col-
lectcr. Few of our native plants are of more poetic suggestion
than the indian pipe. Everyone will recall Whittier’s allusion
to it in his “Jack-in-the-Pulpit.” The least imaginative ob-
server feels a subtile inexplicable thrill as he finds the indian
pipe in deep, dark, cool woods, haunt of the etherial thrush.
There is an elusive sentiment that one seeks in vain to catch
and hold. How Shakespeare's fancy would have played around
it in some glorified Athenian wood. What fun Puck would
have had with it. How lucid would have been Bottom’s com-
ments. \Ve have another species known as pine-sap in which
there are numerous delicate pink flowers. It is hardly as com-
mon as the other.
Akin to these plants, and blooming at the same time in
similar places, are the pyrolas or shin-leaves. What infertility
of resource 1s shown in this abominable common name applied
to things so exquisite. If some of the ingenuity shown in be-
deviling our scientific nomenclature were spent in coining really
beautiful and appropriate common names for common things
there would be hope for us. We have, however, regretfully to
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 49
confess that hitherto such attempts have been worse than in-
effectual. The peculiar waxy white flowers of the pyrolas and
princess pines (Chimaphila) are especially charming. They
are clear-cut, lovely things redolent of the forest. Indeed, in
the case of the one-flowered pyrola (Moneses uniflora) the
fragrance is unforgetably delicate. This plant affects deep
pine woods, so that when one sees a specimen even in the her-
barium he is at once led in thought to deep, dark woods like
those of Franconia.
To prove that nature is but dozing in this lull period, one
has but to visit some swamp gay with lilies, orchids and loose-
strife or to wander by the sea-side where the banks are odorous
with roses and he will note she_leads a dual life. The lull is
deceptive. Great things are in preparation for the gala scene
of later August when the cardinals don their rich array and
asters and goldenrods, joe-pye and iron-weed, clematis and
eround-nut teem in swamp, wayside and meadow.
SPRAYING TO KILL WEEDS
HE use of smothering or poisonous sprays of various kinds
to prevent the depredations of insects has become a mat-
ter of necessity in agricultural practice, but sprays for eradi-
cating weeds are of more recent development. In the battle
with weeds a difficulty is met that is not present when we at-
tempt to exterminate the insects, for a weed spray must dis-
criminate, not between insect and plant, but between good and
bad specimens of the same general kind; between good plants
and harmful ones.
Unfortunately it 1s not always easy for man himself to
make distinctions of this kind. Any plant, good or bad, that
gets out of bounds becomes a weed. Notwithstanding this,
however, some progress has been made in compounding weed .
sprays that can distinguish the weeds from the crops they in-
fest. For instance, the wild mustard, which often takes almost
complete possession of grain fields, can be controlled by a spray
of sulphate of iron. Our illustration shows a grain field in
which a strip in the foreground has been sprayed in this way
while another strip beyond has been allowed to produce its
customary crop of weeds. The complete removal of the weeds
in the sprayed strip will be noted.
The apparent power that sulphate of iron has of dis-
tinguishing between mustard and grain is found to be due to
the covering of the two kinds of plants involved. The leaves
and stems of grain are smooth and covered with a waxy powder
called bloom that sheds water as any other waxed surface
would do. The mustard, on the contrary, is rough, hairy, and
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 51
lacks the waxy coat. When the fields are sprayed, therefore,
the sulphate of iron runs off from the grain leaving it un-
harmed, while it remains on the mustard plants and soon causes
their death.
The use of the sulphate of iron illustrates the way in which
large industries find markets for their waste products. Origi-
Sprayed and unsprayed strips of grain.
nally the iron sulphate, which is produced in cleaning wire for
drawing was turned into the rivers and streams until the steel
mills were ordered to discontinue the practice. In seeking a
market for the product its use as a spray was discovered and
now certain mills actually manufacture the sulphate of iron
since there is not enough of the by-product produced to supply
the demand for it.
MUSHROOMS AND TOADSTOOLS
HE rambler who has never had his attention attracted by
the lowly and unassuming toadstool, must be blind in-
deed. In summer and autumn, go where he will, in field, wood-
land and thicket, the representatives of this wide-spread family
appear. Many people are wont to assume that out of all this
host there is but one edible species, distinguished as the Mush-
room, while all the others are poisonous toadstools. In fact,
the idea that the possession or lack of noxious qualities divides
these plants into two natural groups is very general. The
mycologist, however, selects and eats many which are regarded
as toadstools—one individual claims to have tested five hundred
species—while the unscientific who feel confident that they can
distinguish mushrooms at sight, frequently select the wrong
kind and the next day furnish employment for the undertaker
and the obituary editor. The majority of our species are
probably harmless, but there are unquestionably many that
are noxious, harmful or even deadly poisonous.
There is really no difference between a toadstool and a
mushroom, unless we choose to regard the poisonous species
as toadstools; but in this case we shall be scarcely scientific.
The harmless and noxious species do not belong to different
genera but occur side by side in the same group. Among the
Amanitas, some species are regarded as especially toothsome.
while others are among the most deadly known to Mycology.
Many rules have been put forth for distinguishing the
harmful species, but all but two of them are more or less unre-
liable. The first is to learn to know them by their specific
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST bE
LY
characteristics, just as one learns to know an elm or an oak,
the second is to eat the suspected species. In the latter case, if
the investigator lives, he will be safe in recording his plant as
edible and harmless. The novice should be cautioned against
eating any species of whose identity he is not absolutely sure.
It may be reiterated that the proportion of poisonous to harm-
less species is relatively small, although the former often make
up in numbers what they lack in species. It is a curious fact
that while the unwholesome species produce their effects within
a short time, the really deadly ones do not begin to operate
until from eight to fifteen hours after they are eaten—by which
time they may have been nearly forgotten, and the sufferer may
thus fail at first to connect cause and effect. The development
of the trouble is then rapid and no time should be lost in send-
ing for a physician. Even at this stage there is an antidote
for the poison in atropine, itself a deadly poison. It is ad-
ministered in subcutaneous injections.
There are not a few people who would scarcely regard
mushrooms as plants. Their lack of leaves, true roots, green
coloring matter, etc., seem to make out a good case against
them, but with all this evidence, one would still be disinclined
to call them animals, although they possess the animal-like
characteristic of requiring ready-made or organic food, and
are unable to obtain sustenance from the earth, air and water,
as ordinary green plants do. ‘They are therefore reduced to
the position of scavengers, living upon other plants, and ani-
mals, dead or alive. Mushrooms belong to the flowerless di-
vision of plants, of which the ferns are among the higher
types. Their place in the line of relationship is below the ferns,
below the mosses and liverworts, almost at the foot of the lad-
der of plant evolution in fact. Their nearest allies are the
seaweeds and the green scums that are often found in fresh-
water pools. By many they are supposed to be degenerate off-
spring of the higher seaweeds. Like all the flowerless plants,
54 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
they have no seeds but are propagated by spores which serve
the same purpose. A spore falling in a proper situation for
growth, soon gives rise to a tangle of threadlike structures
which forms the body of the plant. This substance made into
bricks and dried, is the mushroom “‘spawn” sold by the dealers.
At intervals little rounded knobs form upon the mushroom
threads and later develop into the familiar umbrella form. Ili
the “spawn” is exposed to unfavorable conditions, it is said to
be able to wait for years for a chance to fruit. The mushroom,
it may be said, is only the fruiting part of the plant, compar-
able in a general way with the flowering spike of the century
plant, although not homologous with it. On the underside of
the umbrella-like cap are numerous radiating plates called gills
which support the structures on which the spores are produced.
By cutting off this cap and laying it, gills down, on a clean
piece of paper, there will be produced in a few hours a “‘spore-
print’ in exact duplication of the arrangement of the gills, and
due to the shedding of the numerous spores. Usually the
spores are of the same color as the gills, although in some
species they are not.
The mushrooms are classed with the higher fungi. Among
their poor relations are numbered the rusts, smuts, blights,
mildews, molds and bacteria. The puff-balls and morels are
also nearly related. Although so low in the scale of plant life
these constitute a very respectable part of the vegetable king-
dom, since more than forty thousand species have been de-
scribed.
There are about two thousand species of mushrooms in
America. Some of these are known from only a single state,
while others are distributed throughout. Formerly all were
classed in the genus Agaricus, but owing to the differences
which exist in such a multitude, they are now placed in five
groups according to whether their spores are white, pink, yel-
lowish, brown or black. Each of these groups contains one
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 5
Or
or more genera. The student who turns his attention to this
assemblage of plants will find a greater diversity of character-
istics than he might imagine from a cursory examination. In
color it includes species with scarlet, violet, yellow, green,
Orange, white, brown and gray caps. In texture they are
leathery, tough, brittle, fleshy or watery. Some are tasteless,
others are bitter, peppery, mealy, or with a nutty flavor. In
odor some are repellant while others have various pleasing
odors “like ripe apricots,’ anise, etc. The genus Lactarius is
peculiar for having a milky juice that in different species is
white, orange or even blue. This juice is often acrid. In one
species it is so much so that it is said to sting a tender skin like
nettles.
In spite of the dangers that hedge round the pleasures of
the mycophagist—as the mushroom eater likes to be called—
these plants have been used more or less for two thousand
years. The people of China, Italy and France are among the
chief consumers of mushrooms. It is said that the city of
Rome now uses about thirty tons annually. When a person
speaks of the mushroom, Agaricus campester is the one usually
meant. It is the commonest species in cultivation and is also
abundant in the wild state being found in pastures and other
grassy places but seldom if ever in the woods. The cap is
usually white and the gills at first a beautiful pink, changing
later to brown.
EVENING PRIMROSES
HE publication of DeVries’ “Mutation Theory” gave con-
siderable prominence to the evening primrose family, for
it was with one member of this group that many of the results
detailed in the book were obtained. The commonest species
of eastern America (Oenothera biennis) is a familiar weed
along roadsides and in other waste grounds whose yellow
flowers open in the late afternoon and close the next morning.
There is great variation in the size of the flowers and one
form with flowers much larger than usual has been named
grandiflora. It is probably this form, or one closely resembling
it, that DeVries found in Holland and used in his experiments
in the production of new varieties. This form grows naturally
in some of the Southern States and since it achieved prominence
in the plant world the seeds have been offered by 4lorists.
One of the interesting things about the common evening
primrose is the rapidity with which the flowers expand. The
whole act of opening may be witnessed in the course of two
or three minutes if one selects just the right time of day for
his observations. A few minutes before the flower uncloses,
the bud may be seen to expand until the pressure on the enclos-
ing sepals is sufficient to cause them to separate and snap back-
ward in the position they occupy when the flower is expanded.
This movement is usually sufficient to shake the petals open
but if not, they at once spread out with a motion that is quit.
noticeable. Féw people have ever seen a flower actually open
for in most cases the process is so slow that it requires very
careful watching to note any progress, but in this plant there is
no difficulty in seeing the whole process.
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
Or
~
In many parts of the Northern States, there is another
yellow-flowered species known as sundrops (Oecnothera fruti-
cosa). It has deep yellow flowers that belie the name of even-
ing primrose by opening in the morning and remaining spread
throughout the day. It is a perennial and is well worth culti-
vating in the flower garden. Many of the western species in
this group have white flowers and are also day bloomers. This
is true of Ocnothcra pallida in which the blossoms are three
or four inches across and produced in great profusion for a
Blossoms three or four inches across.
month or more in late spring. By the middle of the afternoon
_ the flowers close and a new set take their places the following
morning. This plant will grow in any kind of soil and is not
muen harmed by drouths.. Like the other members of its
family it isa lover of the sun. Even the night-blooming species
prefer to grow in full sunshine.
A species with still larger flowers is Ocnothera speciosa.
This is a plant of the plains with flowers that open late in the
day and close the next morning. It is often found in cultiva-
58 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
tion and appears to be the parent of some of the forms offered
as new creations by the plant breeders. There are numerous
other species of Oenothera widely distributed in the United
States and several have rather showy flowers, but those men-
tioned in this article are probably the best for cultivation.
FASCIATION
flea term fasciation is given to a condition in plants in
which several stems become bunched together and flat-
tened out into a ribbon-like object. The condition may be
found in ordinary vegetative
stems, but it appears to be
most common in the flower-
ing parts. It is known to
occur in a large number of
different species and probably
may occur in any plant when
conditions favor its appear-
ance.
Fasciation 1s very common
in the flowering stems of
the dandelion.) Sceancela a
season passes in which such
abnormalities may not be no-
ticed. The flattened part in
this plant may become an
inch or more wide and the
A fasciated cone flower. flower head may assume cor-
: respondingly monstrous pro-
portions. Along with fasciation there often goes a condition
known as split stem in which there seems to be a failure of the
stems to unite for their entire length. In some of the rudbeckias
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 59
the apex of the fasciation often breaks up into several stems
each with its own flower-head or the stems may be fasciated be-
low, split in the middle, and united again at the top, producing
a multiple flower-head.
In this connection it is interesting to note that the cocks-
comb (Celosia cristata), a familiar plant of old fashioned gar-
dens, 1s an excellent example of fasciation that has practically
become permanent. The abnormality has been cultivated for
so long and the seed so carefully selected that it now comes true
from seed. In several other species of plants in which fascia-
tion occurs spontaneously, DeVries found that thirty per cent
or more of the seedlings produced the peculiarity.
Our illustration shows an interesting example of fasciation
in a western species of cone flower, Lepachys columnaris. In
this, two bundles of stems are fasciated while a number of
single stems afford opportunities for comparison with the
monstrosity. The photo from which the illustration was made
was received from Mrs. S. B. Walker of Denver, Colorado.
CULTIVATING THE SPIDER FLOWER
By Mrs. S. B. WALKER.
HE spider flower (Cleome serrulata) a relative of which
was so interestingly described in a recent number of the
American Botanist also deserves great praise for its adapta-
bility in the hands of the gardener. Its odd blossoms of rosy
purple are pleasing to the eye even when coming up among
other plants and growing as best it may, but when planted
where one wishes it to grow and cultivated and trained into
shape, there is no reason why a single plant should not bear
hundreds of blossoms instead of the dozen or so which it com-
monly produces.
60 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
Clusters nearly as large as those of the snowball.
The accompanying photograph of a single plant will show
what can be accomplished in this direction. This specimen
was more than five feet high and bore several hundred blossoms
in clusters nearly as large as those of the snowball (Viburnia).
The stalk of this plant was an inch and a half in diameter at
the base. For an annual this is doing pretty well.
It is said that the blossoms can be made light and delicate
in color in one plant and deep and dark in another by withhold-
ing or adding iron to the soil. If other than its natural form is
desired, the shoots for some distance from the base may be
pulled off as soon as they appear, leaving the flowers to come
out at the top of the stem in bouquet shape. Following the
methods of the chrysanthemum grower, extremely large clus-
ters of bloom may be had if too many blossoms are not allowed
to develop.
:
q
fs)
PALESTINE FRUITS IN CALIFORNIA
GARDENS
OUTHERN California, particularly on its rural side, has
numerous features that remind the visitor of Palestine,
and as one travels the sunny highways and byways of the state,
he sees in field and garden many a fruit unknown to cultivation
on the eastern side of our continent, though familiar enough
through the reading of Scripture.
After the winter rains have brought out the verdure upon
the soft, round hills, we like to hitch up the family horse for a
jog among the ranches that lie in the undulations of the foot-
hills on the outskirts of our little city. The meadow larks make
music from every fence post; there is the exquisite fragrance
of early orange blossoms in the air; bees are droning in the
warm sunshine and plundering the sunflowers, which here in
southern California bloom winter and summer. Far away
among the hills, already white with the bloom of the wild lilac,
the quail is calling to his mate; and plowmen with teams of six
cr eight horses are turning up the soil for the barley-sowing.
That glowing hillside just ahead of us owes its color to the
bare, ruddy twigs of an orchard of apricots, a tree very com-
mon in California and believed by many scholars to be the apple
of Proverbs and Solomon’s Song. Topping the hill we descend
into a little valley where, though it is still January, an orchard
is in full bloom—a dainty cloud of pink and white resting
lightly upon leafless branches. This is the almond, so fre-
quently mentioned in the Old Testament, of whose wood the
budding rod of Aaron was made. It is the earliest of fruit
62 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
trees to blossom, and because of its haste its young fruit is apt
to be nipped by frost unless it 1s grown in an absolutely frost-
less place. If we pass this way in summer we shall see the
almonds hanging amid the leaves, in shape and look like lean
green peaches. The pulp of the almond fruit, however, instead
of being juicy and edible as is its peach cousin, is thin and dry,
and at maturity splits open, disclosing the nut which is so well
beloved at all our feasts.
On these midwinter days we see the vinedressers busy
among the grapevines, pruning them back. The grapes of
southern California vineyards are not of the sorts cultivated in
the eastern states—such as the Concord, the Delaware or the
Niagara, all of which are developments of native American
species—but are of the quite different old-world stock, known
to botanists as Vitis vinifera. It is abundant throughout Pales-
tine, and of it was probably that famous cluster which the
Children of Israel cut down in the valley of Eshcol. Each vine
of these old-world grapes, instead of being trained high over
trellises as 1s the case with our eastern grapes, is cut back an-
nually to within a foot or two of the ground. Each year adds
to the girth of the stumps which in old vineyards look like the
stumps of small trees. A southern California vineyard, after
its winter pruning, dotted with hundreds of beautyless stumps,
is a scene of desolation as great as the burnt vineyards of the
Philistines must have been after the fire-bearing foxes of Sam-
son had overrun them. In the late summer and autumn, how-
ever, they are very beautiful and interesting—heaving lakes of
green upon the sunny hillsides, disclosing amid the leaves great
clusters of purple and white fruit.
Another characteristic Bible plant abundant in southern
California is the olive. The oldest olive orchard in the state
was planted by the mission fathers at the old Franciscan estab-
lishment near San Diego, and one finds about all the old mis-
sion remnants of olive yards which are said to have been started
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 63
from cuttings obtained from the San Diego mission. The uni-
versal presence of the olive in the southern California landscape
does much to give to the region its Old World look and to bring
to mind the beautiful imagery of the Old Testament, as one
travels amidst the spreading beauty of the trees. They have
a peculiar ashen-gray foliage, persisting throughout the year,
and producing a marked character that causes them to be readily
recognized even at long distances. Bible readers will remember
that the foliage of the olive brought to the ark by the return-
ing dove is the first green thing that is named after the waters
of the Noahian flood had begun to subside. The ripe fruit is a
bright, glossy black in color, and Californians with a penchant
for practical jokes like to tempt strangers to take a bite of it.
The taste is intensely bitter and astringent, and one wonders
at the genius of the man who originally discovered its edibility.
The birds like the fruit when it is dead ripe and doubtless find ©
it as pleasing as the wild cherry is to their eastern cousins.
Properly pickeled the ripe olive is delicious and nutritious, and
by most Californians is preferred to the pickeled green olive.
~ Quite as abundant in our Land of Sunshine as the olive is
that other biblical fruit tree, the fig—one of the most ancient
and beautiful trees, which like the olive was introduced to our
Pacific Coast by the Franciscans in the eighteenth century. Old
trees two feet in diameter are to be seen in California, and one
who plants a fig in his garden does well to set 1t where its branches
may have uninterupted growth for a radius of twenty feet all
about it. Once we stayed for a day at a rancher’s dwelling
where close to the house an old fig tree grew, whose ample
spread of dense foliage was as impervious to the sun as a
shingled roof, and throughout the hot, rainless summer the
family utilized its cool shade for a dining hall and living room,
furnishing it appropriately with table and chairs. They were
pleasant meals we ate there, and brought a realization of the
peace and security which the ancient Hebrews associated so par-
ticularly with dwelling under one’s own vine and one’s own
fig tree.
64 JuE0s. AMERICAN BOTANIST
The commonest fig of the southern California countryside
is of the black mission stock brought in by the Spanish padres,
but its fruit does not dry so well as the Syrian or Smyrna fig
which 1s of comparatively recent introduction. The dweller in a
land of figs, however, does not wait to have them dried before
eating them; he plucks the fresh fruit when ripe, peels back the
outer skin and eats the rosy, seedy, pulpy interior immediately.
It possesses a mild, sweetish taste which to most palates is pleas-
ant enough without any addition, but at the table it is usually
served with cream and sugar. That the Israelites of old must
have had a fondness for the fresh fig is attested by that figure of
the prophet Nahum: ‘All thy fortresses shall be like fig-trees
with the first-ripe figs: if they be shaken, they talliimuoetice
mouth of the eater”
The pomegranate is another typical Old Testament fruit
that thrives well in southern California. The Spanish settlers
of southern California had an oriental fondness for the pome-
granate, and it grows in all old-time gardens, the glossy green
foliage lighted up in early summer with the brilliant scarlet
flowers and the branches loaded in autumn with the rusty-
orange, hard-husked fruit. Often the plant is set in hedges that
line the highway, and at times neglected bushes of it are found
growing solitary by a road which has been cut through some
old rancho. The exceeding seediness of the pomegranate is a
drawback to the enjoyment of it, and most Americans are in too
much haste to devote time to its consumption. Its thin, watery
pulp, however, has a peculiar quality especially grateful in a
warm climate, and the wonderful colors of its lovely, crumpled
petals and of the fruit appeal to the sense of the beautiful in us
today as strongly as they did to the ancient artists who sculp-
tured its forms upon the temple of Sclomon and embroidered
them into the hem of Aaron’s priestly vestment.—C. F. Saun-
ders, in Forward.
aN.
5, NOTE and COMMENT
DELAYED FLOWERING IN THE WITCH-HAZEL.—The
witch-hazel is well known as a late bloomer, but last year I
found a few plants in which some of the flowers appeared
mmtistialty late. December 29, 1913, at Glencoe, Ill, I found
a number of plants on which appeared many flowers in all
stages of development from unopened buds to withering petals,
while other flowers on the same plant had bloomed at the
usual time, at least a month previous, only the persistent calyx
being in evidence. The plants were observed about noon, when
the temperature registered 33°, or very little above the freez-
ing point, yet many buds could be seen opening. Brought into
the house most of the buds fully opened within two days, some
within one. The flowers were normal except that the petals
were somewhat shorter than ordinary. All the plants were
badly infested with galls. The cause of the late flowering was
no doubt due to lack of nutrition earlier in the year owing to
the presence of the galls, only the flowers more favorably situ-
ated opening at the usual time. The specimens before me show
that on the badly infested twigs all the flowers are the later
ones, while on slightly infested twigs the later flowers are only
those nearest the galls, or they may be absent. It would seem
that the later flowers were only able to open after the death of
the galls, which had heretofore used up the available food,
when some nutrition could be obtained by the unopened buds
during a slight resumption of activity at an increase of tem-
perature to above the freezing point. Granting that some of
these unopened buds survived the winter, it is quite conceivable
66 Are AMERICAN, BOLANTSa
that spring flowers could be found, but I have not been able
to take a trip to find out of such is the case.—Edain D. Hull.
THe MuraTion THrEoryY A Myre 2 Durtme tine pact
decade, no phase of botany has received greater attention than
the mutation theory of DeVries. In brief, this theory accounts
for the origin of new species by the occurrence of sudden leaps
or mutations from existing species, in contradistinction to the
Darwinian theory which assumes a slower and more gradual
variation from existing forms. Both theories are based on the
idea that plants vary from the normal and differ chiefly in the
length and number of the jumps or mutations required to make
the new form a species. DeVries stands for a single long
jump, Darwin for a succession of shorter ones. Much plausi-
bility has been given the theory advocated by DeVries by his
production of new forms from that form of evening primrose
known as Oenothera Lamarckiana but Prof E. C. Jeffrey
writing recently in Science claims that O. Lamarckiana is a
hybrid. The great trouble is to decide what are and what are
not hybrids. The old test for a hybrid was its sterility. If
completely sterile it was considered as certainly a hybrid. Hy-
brids, however, are now known to be of various grades of fer-
tility. A great number of crosses between different species
have been made and as the plants crossed differ in the degree
of relationship, it follows that various grades of sterility may
exist. Jeffrey gives it as his opinion that hybrids may always
be identified by the fact that the pollen grains are more or less
abortive and infertile. Judged by this test, the plant with
which DeVries made most of his experiments 1s a hybrid and
Jeffrey insists that in consequence the mutation theory has no
standing in court and should be relegated to the realm of
myths. It may be said, however, regardless of the merits of
the new theory, that the discussion of the subject has had a
tremendous influence on the production of new forms by breed-
ers and this much at least must be set down to its credit.
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 67
NEw Paper Stock.—To make the paper for a single
issue of the large daily newspaper, the pulp made from the
timber in four or five acres of woodland 1s required. \Vhen all
the books and papers printed on wood pulp paper are considered
the enormous daily consumption of our forests becomes ap-
parent. This demand for wood is also constantly increasing.
The favorite wood of the paper-maker at present is spruce, but
the waning supply of this wood has caused the manufacturers
to look about for other woods that will take its place. One of
the promising sources of wood pulp in the future seems to
exist in trees of the national forests that are of little use for
timber. The principal problem at present is to economically
work up such stock. The investigation of the subject 1s being
carried on at the Government laboratory at Wausau, Wis-
consin.
Soap From PLants.—That many plants, or plant parts,
will form a lather when rubbed up in water has long been
known but only recently has this fact taken on much commer-
cial importance though soap bark has for many years formed
part of the druggist’s stock in trade. According to Science, the
settlers in Western Kansas are now cutting the yucca (Y. bac-
cata), known locally as Spanish bayonet and soap-weed, for
sale to the soap makers. The plants when dried and baled bring
about eight dollars a ton delivered to the railway and it is said
an energetic man can make fair wages at the business. The
plants are used in making toilet soaps for which purpose they
are said to be especially valuable since they contain no alkali.
CHANGING VALUES IN Botany.—lIt was Linnaeus “the
Father of Botany” who declared that the only worthy task of
a botanist was to know by name as many species of the vege-
table kingdom as possible, but the world has moved a long
distance forward since his day. In the beginning, any science
must deal largely with classification and description, but such
work is merely a means to an end. In order to deal further
68 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
with a specimen its name and external characteristics must be
known. After classification comes studies of the internal struc-
ture followed by investigations of function, ‘environment and
inheritance. Although the mere naming of plants belongs to
the elementary stages of botany a large number of our botanists
have never gotten beyond it and many probably never will. To
them a new species bulks larger than any fact or principle of
ecology, physiology, or evolution. The more advanced think-
ers, however, have gone on to studies of ecology and genetics
and though these should logically follow one another they have
been taken up so nearly simultaneously that they have been
somewhat telescoped. A writer in Science dubs work in
naming plants “Manual labor” and rejoices that the botany of
the schools is no longer a half year’s study of Gray’s manual
followed by a second half year of the same kind. It is rather
early to rejoice, however. A large number of schools still do
very little except “analyze” plants and the botanizer is seldom
interested in anything else. As a class, the people interested in
plants have not discovered that the days of the pioneer are past.
VARYING RuDBECKIAS.—Miss Caroline Grey Soule
writes: “Let anyone working up Rudbeckias go to Vermont.
I have found the variety with brown on the lower half of the
rays, the double flower and the quilled rays in single and double
flowers, some much like Dahlia in form. All have been found
in nine summers at Brandon, Vermont, and the first three
forms at Tyson, also.” It often happens that a plant in a new
habitat produces a greater number of new forms than it does
in its original home. This is probably due to the efforts of
the species to adjust itself to new conditions. Wild flowers
removed to cultivation act in a similar way. Rudbeckia is an
immigrant in Vermont. Probably its endeavors to conquer
the country accounts for the variations observed.
WATER PLANTAIN IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.—Last
August I found quite a colony of the water plantain (Alisma
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 69
plantago-aquatica) on the Pacific Electric right of way, about
half way between Los Angeles and Long Beach. Iam told this
is the first record for this plant in Southern California. I also
found a plant of Lepidiwm perfoliatum on a hillside north of
Los Angeles. Dr. A. Davidson found a few plants in Holly-
wood in 1910, but it is not common.—George L. Mowley.
RUDBECKIAS. AND MorsturRE.—Miss Nell McMurray ob-
serves that black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) belie their
sturdy looks in one sense: one must hurry home after gather-
ing them because they soon wilt and once wilted water will not
revive them. This peculiarity is not confined to Rudbeckias,
however. A large number of plants that seem able to with-
stand almost any amount of dryness when rooted in the soil,
/ quickly wilt when severed from their roots. We expect such
behavior in water plants since they are generally so adjusted
to a watery habitat that they possess no means of retaining the
water in their tissues and, indeed, do not need such adaptations
in their habitats. But in the plants of dry regions provision
for retaining moisture is necessary, and it is a surprise to find
in such a habitat plants that wilt so easily. ‘The reason for this
might furnish a problem worth solving by one with the time
for the work.
VARYING WEIGHT OF LEAVES.—That a bushel of leaves
picked from a tree in spring weighs less when dried than a
bushel of leaves from the same tree picked in autumn is well
known. The increase in weight is due to the accumulation of
mineral matter in the leaf during the summer. A similar dif-
ference has been found by our government experts to exist
between the weight of leaves picked from the plant and dried
and the weight of similar leaves left to dry on the plant. In
the process of drying, part of the substance of the leaves 1s
withdrawn into the stem when they are left on the plant. Since
the loss of weight in leaves dried on the plant is often twice
as great as the loss in picked leaves this fact assumes some com-
70 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
mercial importance when it concerns a crop, such as tobacco,
which is sold at a good round price per pound. If the tobacco
grower picks the leaves from his plant-and dries them instead
of cutting down and drying the plant in the usual way, he will
have possibly fifteen per cent more tobacco by weight. The
question as to which procedure is the best depends entirely on
whether the added weight will produce enough revenue to pay
for the extra cost of handling in the new way and leave a profit
over, but it 1s the solution of such problems as these that make
all the difference between automobiles or Fords for Uncle Silas.
Upo.—Udo is a Japanese plant of the ginseng family
known to botanists as Aralia cordata and therefore closely re-
lated to our pettymorel or wild spikenard (A. racemosa). It
is not unlike our own species of Aralia, and has been used as a
spring vegetable in Japan for a long time. The young shoots
are blanched and eaten much as sea kale (Crambe maritima)
is with us. For some years the United States Government has
been endeavoring to introduce udo into cultivation, but thus
far with indifferent success, possibly because the flavor is some-
what different from that of the other vegetables which we use
in a similar way. Eaten raw the stems have a faint suggestion
of turpentine and a liking for the plant may have to be ac-
quired. The flavor, however, is no more pronounced than that
of parsnip, or celery, and cooking is said to improve or modify
it. Udo is somewhat larger than the wild spikenard and some-
times reaches a height of ten feet. Like our species it is an
herbaceous perennial and dies down to the earth in fall. When
the young shoots appear in spring they are blanched by heaping
the soil around them or covering them with drain tiles. The
edible portions are from twelve to eighteen inches long and
nearly an inch and a half thick. Though the plant is but slowly
becoming known, it is said to be steadily growing in favor and
a few truck gardeners are now growing it on a commercial
scale. One of its advantages is that it is ready in spring before
—————————— ee ee
|
|
|
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 71
. most other garden crops are mature. Only sea kale, asparagus
and rhubarb compete with it.
Tue Ducx Potato.—Botanists perfectly familiar with
the various species of arrow-head (Sagittaria) may perhaps
fail to recognize the species under the vernacular name of duck
potato, but to hunters and trappers the name carries more sig-
nificance. The plant that usually goes by the name is a com-
mon species of the Mississippi delta, but it also occurs from
Texas to Alabama and northward almost to the Great Lakes.
The potatoes, from which the plant gets its common name, are
produced on runners from the base of the plant. They are
globular in shape and may become an inch in diameter. Wald
ducks are very fond of them. The gullet of one canvasback
examined contained twenty-four entire tubers and the remains
of several more. Two other species of Sagittaria—sS. latifolia
and §. arifolia—produce similar tubers though few botanists
appear to be familiar with them. These latter species are dis-
tributed nearly throughout the United States and being more
widely known have acquired a variety of common names.
Among these may be mentioned wapato, Chinese onion, water
nut, and swan-, duck-, muskrat-, and swamp-potato. The
tubers of Sagittaria latifolia may become two inches long and
more than an inch in diameter. From six to nine are often
found on a plant. A bulletin from the United States Bureau
of Biological Survey calls attention to the value of these plants
in attracting and providing food for waterfowl. The plants
are easily established in regions where they do not naturally
grow, either by means of seeds or tubers, though the latter are
said to give the more satisfactory results.
DeatH oF Dr. W. W. Batrey.—Dr. William Whitman
Bailey, well and favorably known to all readers of this maga-
zine through his frequent contributions to its pages, died at his
residence in Providence, R. I., February 20, 1914, at the age
of 71. Dr. Bailey was the son of Prof. Jacob Bailey, and was
~}
bo
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
born at West Point on February 22, 1843. He entered Brown
University in 1860, but withdrew in 1862 to become a private.
in the 10th Rhode Island Volunteers. He returned later to
Brown and was graduated. Upon his graduation he became
assistant in chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology and the next year was appointed botanist of the United
States Geological Survey of the 40th Parallel. Later he studied
botany in Columbia and Harvard Universities and in 1877 be-
came instructor in botany in Brown University. Four years
later he became full professor of botany in the same institution
and this place he held until 1906 when he retired as Professor
Emeritus. Dr. Bailey was a member of many scientific and
other societies and was frequently selected for positions of
honor in them. In addition to being the author of many short
articles on scientific subjects published in a variety of maga-
zines, Dr. Bailey produced several books, the best known of
which are “Among Rhode Island Wildflowers,’ “New Eng-
land Wildflowers,” ‘The Botanical Collector's Handbook,”
and “Botanizing.” His last volume was a collection of his
poems published in 1909. Dr. Bailey had a philosophical and
humorous way of looking at common things that made his ob-
servations always of interest. He was ever ready to help those
who were interested in his favorite subject and there are few of
the present generation of botanists who do not owe him a debt
of gratitude on this score. He belonged to a group of students
who began their studies before the microscope and the scalpel
became the chief tools of the botanist and ever derived the
greatest pleasure from the contemplation of the living plant in-
stead of its dried and sectioned counterpart.
VIOLETS BUT NOT VioLas.—lIf a recent student of the
violets has his, way, there is not likely to be much left of. the
genus Viola to which we have heretofore regarded these plants
as belonging. As every one knows, the violets may be blue,
lavender, yellow, or white in color, may have cleistogamous
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
~)
ae
flowers or not, may possess aerial stems, or grow from a half
subterranean stem known as a rhizome. ‘These differences give
the systematist a chance to divide the genus V1ola into sections,
and it is these sections that the reviser now wants to elevate to
generic rank. There never has been any hard and fast rule for
making genera—it all depends upon who is doing it, whether
he calls a group of species a genus or makes this category for
a species with several forms. By the newly proposed division,
the bird-foot violet (Viola pedata) becomes the type of the
new genus O1onychion, the pansies are typical of the genus
Mnemion, Viola pubescens and its allies become Crocion, Viola
Canadensis finds itself in Lophion while the remainder of the
species though still placed in Viola are distributed in the sub-
genera Ewion, Hesperion, Eucentrion, Eulophion, and Rhabdo-
tion. At this juncture the supply of ions appears to have given
out for we find one subgenus actually named Verbasculwim.
The word ion, it may be remarked, is the Greek for violet,
which explains its use in this connection. Certainly the genus
is properly ionized at last and we may hope that it will remain
in a stable condition. What funny fellows these nomenclatur-
ists are, to be sure!
7 =
EDITORIAL
St ne,
One of our numerous societies for the protection of our
native wild flowers lists the spring beauty (Claytonia) and the
violet among the plants needing special protection and adds
that the flowers of late summer may be freely picked. It may
be doubted whether the violet and spring beauty stand in need
of protection, but there are certainly some flowers of late sum-
mer that do. The idea that such blossoms may be freely picked
must contribute not a little to the destruction of the gentians,
sabbatias and the cardinal flower. What we need is not pro-
hibition of all flower gathering, but discrimination in picking.
In all our efforts toward flower protection it should be remem-
bered that this movement is scarcely comparable with that
which is so successfully protecting the birds. Even the con-
servation of our forests is on a different footing. Forests are
not sufficiently portable to be carried off by an individual—only
a Trust can rob us of them—nor are birds fastened to perches
where they must remain until someone chooses to take them.
If given half a chance the birds can remove themselves from
harm’s way; they do not go with the land. But with flowers
it is different; though as attractive to many persons as the
birds they cannot avoid anyone who wishes to pick them. If
one refrains from killing a bird, there is a chance that it may
fly away where others cannot secure it, but, in most cases, if
one refrains from flower gathering he simply leaves the flowers
to be picked by others. It is also to be remembered that flowers
are universally regarded as intended for gathering. There is
not a town of any size in the country where there is not one
~
Or
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
or more flower stores which offer cut flowers for sale. We see
flowers everywhere: at weddings, funerals, parties, on the
table, decorating the living room and the automobile. The
very people most insistent on flower protection are great users
of cut flowers. Even many of the plants bear out the idea that
flowers are meant to be picked, for most bear more flowers than
can ever ripen their seeds should they be fertilized, and the
violet, one of the plants listed as needing protection actually
bears large numbers of showy blossoms that rarely produce
seed if left ungathered. These latter can certainly be picked
without harming the plants.
No one would think of forbidding the owner of the forest
to cut it down; how can we in reason then forbid the gathering
of flowers on lands that are privately owned? If the owner is
willing for them to be picked that is the end of the matter, and
if he is not, he already has plenty of laws to protect them. The
move toward flower protection is prompted by an admirable
sentiment but it is only sentiment until it is linked up with
practical and effective measures for accomplishing the end in
‘ view. It would seem that such methods still need to be de-
vised. The end cannot be accomplished by pledging any num-
ber of people not to pick flowers. Probably the surest way to
preserve the rarer members of our flora from extinction is to
establish preserves for them in public parks and on large private
estates. This is already being done to some extent, but we need
a stronger sentiment in favor of’such work. Often the owner
of land on which rare species grow, though not interested in
botany and careless of vegetation in general, may be induced
to protect them when his attention is called to them simply be-
cause they are rare. The writer knows of several sanctuaries
of this kind which have been established thus. There are many
flowers, however, that because of their abundance or aggres-
Siveness may be picked by all who will. Lists of such species
ought to be published and the public taught to distinguish
76 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
them. We would be glad to have lists of such species from our
readers. We nominate the oxeye daisy to head the list sup-
ported by the wild sunflowers and the golden rods. Lists of
species really in need of protection are also desired. Probably
when the subject 1s broadly considered, it will be found that
many species may not need protection throughout their range.
In some states, or even larger regions, they may be so abundant
as to need no protection.
BOOKS AND WRITERS
To anyone with a limited space that can be devoted to
gardening, “The Backyard Farmer” by J. Willard Bolte should
appeal. In some seventy-five short chapters, practically every
phase of gardening is touched upon whether it be the growing
of vegetables or flowers, or the care of poultry and other live
stock. The novice here finds a wealth of suggestion for mak-
ing the back yard of the suburban residence yield a large re-
turn of health, pleasure and profit with a minimum of effort.
It is a good book for anybody beginning gardening to have
and older students will find much in its pages of value. It is
published by Forbes and Company, Chicago, at $1.00.
Prof. John H. Schaffner has revised his “Trees of Ohio
and Surrounding Territory” and named the new issue “Field
Manual of Trees.” Though the book is small enough to fit
into almost any pocket, it contains 150 pages in which the trees
and large shrubs of the United States east of the Great Plains
are clearly described. As a means for identifying the species,
there are four sets of keys, one for them in their summer con-
dition, one for the winter condition, one for the flowers and
one for the fruits. Although there are no illustrations, it does
not seem possible that even the beginner could go astray in
naming his specimens. In addition to the charaeters by which
the trees are known, the author gives much information re-
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 77
garding the qualities of the wood, its uses and the like. We
regret to see a scientist of Prof. Schafiner’s attainments adher-
ing to the absurd “American Code” in matters of nomenclature.
This, in the reviewers’ opinion is the greatest defect in the
book. A disposition is also shown to put forth the term
ovulary in place of the better known and well established word
ovary. The book is published by R. G. Adams & Co., Colum-
bus, Ohio, at $1.25.
The demand for practical courses in agriculture for
schools has led to the production of many text-books of vary-
ing grades of excellence, but one that deserves a prominent
place is the volume by D. D. Mayne and K. L. Hatch entitled
“High School Agriculture.” The book begins, as all such
books should, with a discussion of the chemistry of plants and
the soil, and takes up next agricultural botany and economic
plants and the insects and diseases that trouble them and ends ©
with about a hundred pages devoted to farm animals and farm
management. The book is especially full regarding the varie-
ties of vegetables and other farm crops but seems lacking in
cultural directions, especially those of a fundamental nature,
for crops in general. There is also lacking a discussion of
decorative planting, and plant breeding, two subjects that are
sO prominent in work with plants today that their omission is
noticeable. The book is published by The American Book
Company, New York.
Market and truck gardening, as distinguished from the
growing of the more general farm crops, has thus far received
little attention at the hands of the makers of books on agri-
culture, and yet, some of the truck gardener’s single crops ex-
ceed in value the entire fruit crop of the United States includ-
ing the citrus fruits, apples, peaches and prunes, as well as
fruits of lesser importance. Practically the only comprehensive
treatise on this phase of crop production is found in L. C.
Corbett’s “Garden Farming” which forms a new volume in the
78 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
Country Life Education Series issued by Ginn & Co. In this
book, early chapters are devoted to a discussion of the princi-
ples of planting, cultivating, and marketing the crops, but the
bulk of the book deals with the different crops in an alphabetical
arrangement. In this part, specific information is given as to
the methods of cultivation, the varieties grown, the kind of soil
most suitable to each crop, the origin and uses of the plants and
much other data that must prove of great value to the grower.
A large number of illustrations make clear the operations
described.
The authors of “Practical Botany’—J. Y. Bergen and
O. W. Caldwell—have brought out a more elementary text de-
signed for a half year course, which covers the same general
field and bears the title of “An Introduction to Botany.”
Though issued but a short time after the larger work, the ar-
rangement of the new book shows how rapidly the content of
the botanical text is changing. The seed no longer holds first
place in the presentation of the subject. Instead, the plant as
a whole is first considered and some attention given to the
manufacture of food, digestion, and related matters. Then
follows the usual sequence of roots, stems, etc., with a brief
survey of the lower groups of plant life. Throughout the book
an attempt is made to connect the study with everyday life. In
endeavoring to be lucid, however, the authors occasionally be-
come obscure as in such sentences as “As a rule, animals eat
plants or animals that have used plants as food.” A set of
questions follows each chapter but the questions are sometimes
so indefinite as to be of little value. The book is well illus-
trated and the copious explanatory matter under each picture
is to be especially commended. It is issued by Ginn & Co., and
costs $1.15.
Dr. George Lincoln Walton, whose “Wildflowers and
Fruits’ was issued a few years ago, has produced another
volume called “The Flower Finder’ which, as its name indi-
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 79
cates, is designed as a means of identifying the wildflowers. As
in practically all books of this kind, the showy wildflowers are
grouped in various ways—according to color, the arrangement
and shape of the leaves, etc-——and these smaller groups are
then easy to handle by means of brief Keys. Only the more
conspicuous flowering plants are included in the book, but those
that are listed are probably all that the ordinary botanizer
would discover until he graduated into a more pretentious
“Manual.” The descriptive matter included the time of bloom-
ing, the common and scientific names, and various notes of
popular interest. The derivation of the scientific names are
given and the pronunciation indicated. Every alternate page is
devoted to pen and ink drawings of the flowers—some 600 in
all—by the author which will greatly assist in identifying the
plants. The book is bound in flexible leather and is published
by the J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia. Price $2.00.
With the publication of “Rocky Mountain Wildflowers”’
by Doctors Frederic E. and Edith S. Clements, botanists are
introduced to a new type of manual that seems likely to become
popular as its merits become known. To begin with, the
authors have not striven to give a double scientific name to
every plant in the region covered; instead they very sensibly
have described what are coming to be called “botanical species”’,
that is, species that everyone recognizes as distinct, and have
made the descriptions broad enough to include the numerous
elementary species and other segregates so dear to the heart of
the species-maker. This method of treatment is the result of
the authors’ inclination toward ecological rather than taxo-
nomic subjects, but it is one that the flower lover will welcome.
The book seems designed to indicate clearly the plants of the
region instead of to involve the botanizer in a maze of technical
verbiage. The best thing about the book, however, and one
that cannot be praised too highly, is the method of keying out
the species. In other books we are accustomed to the keys to the
80 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
species that need to be backed up by copious descriptive matter,
but here every species is singled out by some salient character-
istic and no further description being needed, none is given.
The book is also unique in departing in many ways from the
accepted classification as illustrated in recent manuals, begin-
ning, for instance, with buttercups and running into the mints
before taking up such primitive families as the roses or arrow-
heads. There are twenty-five excellent plates in color by Mrs.
Clements as well as some hundreds of figures in black-and-
white and the text covers nearly 400 octavo pages. The ar-
rangement of the type could have been improved by the selec-
tion of faces of greater contrast, but this defect is not likely to
greatly bother those who consult the book. ‘The area covered
by the work is practically that of the Rocky Mountains in the
United States and contiguous territory. The book is published
by the H. W. Wilson’ Company of White’ Plains, Ne x an
$3.00.
Vol. 20. No. 3 Whole Number 102
AUGUST, 1914
25 Cents a Copy: $1.00 a Year
: WILLARD N. CLUTE & CO.
JOLIET, ILLINOIS
The American Botanist
A Quarterly Journal of Economic & Ecological Botany
WILLARD N. CLUTE, EDITOR
SUBSCRIPTIONS.—The subscription price of this magazine is $1.00 a
year or $1.50 for two years, payable strictly in advance. Personal checks
on small or distant banks must contain ten cents for collection fees. The
magazine is issued on the 20th of February, May, August and November,
BACK NUMBERS.—Volumes 1 to 10 inclusive consists of 6 numbers
each, Vols. 11 to 13 of 5 numbers each and all later volumes of 4 numbers
each. The first 18 volumes may be had for 75 cents a volume, or the set
will be sent for $9.00. A full set contains 2312 pages.
THE FERN BULLETIN
In 1913, at the completion of its twentieth volume, The Fern Bulletin was consoli-
dated with this magazine. The back volumes average more than 100 pages each, and
since they cover the entire formative period of American Fern study they are invaluable
for reference. The majority of new forms discovered in recent years have been
described in its pages. First six volumes out of print. A set of vols. 7 to 20 will be sent
for $7.00. A sample volume, our selection for 40 cents. An extended description of the
contents of the volumes may be had for the asking.
WILLARD N. CLUTE & CO., PUBLISHERS
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Is devoted to commonplace nature with uncommon
interest. It will cost you but ten cents to get a copy
and let it tell its own story.
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largest organization for the study of all nature. . It
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Full particulars free upon application.
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Tue AMERICAN BOTANIST
No. 3
VOL. XX JOLIET, Tet AUGUST, 1914
“You scarce can SAY
If 1t be Summer still, or Autumn yet,
Rather tt seems as th the twatn had met
Wind Summer, being loath to go away,
J)
Autumn retains her hand and begs of her to stay. é
THE WATER HYACINTH
By Wittarp oN: CLUTE.
THERE are many different species of flowering plants that
live in the water, but very few that are not rooted in the
mud at the bottom. Rooted plants are secured against being
washed away or floated down to the sea on the streams and
rivers, but since they can occupy only the shallows, a large area
of water surface is still left to be occupied by such plants as
have taken up a floating existence. Among the lower plants
the floating habit is common. A large number of the algae are
unattached, and many of the one celled forms do not merely
float passively, but move actively about in the water like ani-
mals. Among the liverworts, several species of Riccia are
floating plants and even the ferns have several species with this
habit. The little water fern (Azolla) covers great stretches
of stagnant water with its pink-tinged fronds, and its near
relative, Salvinia natans, may be found in similar situations,
though seldom so abundant. A tropical fern, Ceratopteris
thalictroides, is known as the floating fern and may be found
even in brackish water in the quiet inlets along the Gulf Coast.
Of floating species of flowering plants, the most abundant
and wide spread are undoubtedly the duckweeds, though their
82 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
flowers are so insignificant and so rarely produced that we may
possibly not think of them as belonging to this class. Several
of the bladderworts (Utricularia) also float and in the tropics
the water lettuce (Pistia spathulata), a relative of Jack-in-the-
pulpit, may be found thriving on the surface of pools and slow
streams. The most singular of these floating plants, however,
is doubtless the water hyacinth (Piaropus crasstpes). Though
a plant of considerable size, it has no difficulty in maintaining
its position in the water, being buoyed up by its curious leaf-
stalks which are dilated at the base and filled with air. The
rootstalk from which these leaves rise is able to produce roots
on occasion and when, through stress of circumstances, the
plant finds itself stranded on a muddy shore it promptly sends
out roots and lives as an anchored plant thereafter, though
usually it is found floating. In favorable situations it may
completely cover the water for long distances.
The water hyacinth is frequently seen in cultivation in the
Northern States, and several dealers in aquatics offer it for
sale. In the tropics, however, it is a most detested weed with-
out value. In some Florida rivers it has proved such an ob-
stacle to navigation that the national government has found it
necessary to take strenuous measures to eradicate it. It is a
native of tropical America and; though commonly cultivated in
this country, the plant seems not to have taken up a wild life
here until about 1890. Then it escaped from an artificial pool
into the St. John’s river in Florida and has since spread to the
bayous and tidewater marshes as far as Louisiana.
In spite of its aggressive methods of colonization, the
plant presents a beautiful sight when in full bloom, being
thickly set with short spikes of purplish-lavender flowers held
well above the water. The individual flowers are large and
shghtly two-lipped with the middle of the upper petal marked
with deep blue and yellow. The leaf blades are rounded and
somewhat spoon-shaped while the petioles bulge out into a
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 83
nearly globular shape, forming efficient floats. When the plant
is rooted in soil the leaves do not produce these enlarged peti-
oles. The water hyacinth belongs to the pickerel weed. family
(Pontederiaceac), a rather erratic group of about twenty-five
species inhabiting the warmer parts of the world.. The only
members of the family to push into the Northern States are the
pickerel weed (Pontcderia) and the mud plantain (Heter-
anthera). Others of this latter genus occur in our Southern
waters.
The frontispiece illustrates a colony of the water hyacinth
growing with the yellow lotus (Neluwmbiim) in an aquatic
garden. We are indebted to Prof. Chas. O. Chambers for the
photograph, which was made by C. H. Thompson.
THE SPIDER LILY
By Mrs. G. T. DRENNAN.
fe TIUM maritimum is a native of the swamp lands
of Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi and Alabama. It has
many local names, among them Grayson’s lily, cup-lily, swamp-
lily, and most common of all, spider lily. Gray says the name is
from a Greek word meaning all-powerful, for which he sees no
obvious reason. Probably he never saw the Pancratiuims at
home on the banks of the bayous, lakes and rivers of the South.
All-powerful is what they suggest. The long strap-shaped
leaves, tropical in their luxuriance, are broad as a saddle-girth
and of a shining, lively, light green. They are very striking
where they grow in rank abundance, and, when planted in
gardens, form no mean adornment.
The flower stalks are hollow, though tall and strong, From
every bulb, from six to ten stalks shoot up. The flowers are
borne in large clusters and are very different in construction
from the true lilies. The long narrow divisions of the perianth,
84 THE AMERICAN BOTANISY
six in number, spread spider-like from the tube and from this
projects a twelve-toothed, funnel-shaped corona bearing the
stamens.
When viewed where nature has fostered their growth,
amid the reeds, ferns, flags and tall grasses of the swamp lands,
the blooming Pancratiwms with their spreading snow-white
perianth and broad stamen-cup, fringed with floating filaments
form a feature of the landscape that is in keeping with the
almost tropical luxuriance of their surroundings. Masses of
the spider lily in bloom are like white pinioned birds in flight,
so completely do they cover the rich green fouudations above
which the tall stalks support them. They are richly perfumed,
as lilies are wont to be, and a large quantity near the house is
open to the objection of too heavily freighting the air.
~
THE ADDER’S TONGUE
BY ADELLA PRESCOMm
F the adder’s tongue (Oplioglossum vulgatum) lacked the
distinction of being “not common” there would be little
about it to arouse the enthusiasm of the lover of ferns, for it
is a small plant with neither grace nor beauty to attract the eye,
but when Gray pronounces a plant “rane (onvarmleasia. met
common,” it does not need to be beautiful in order to be eagerly
sought by all who are interested in Nature’s handiwork.
The adder’s tongue is a smali plant, ‘ranely amomemtmanmea
foot high and generally much less. The sterile portion 1s ovate
and leaf-like with nothing to suggest the grace and delicacy of
our more familiar ferns. It may be from two to four inches
long and does not rise far above the grass in which it is likely
to be found. The narrow fruiting spike is from half an inch
to two inches or more in length and is considerably taller than
the sterile portion. The plant has a short rootstalk with many
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 85
short fleshy roots from which new plants are sometimes pro-
duced, and there is a freakishness about it that makes it inter-
esting in spite of its lack of beauty.
It seems to have no special preferences as to habitat though
the fact of its rarity might suggest that it would be very decided
in its likings. The tallest specimens are perhaps found in
sphagnum bogs but it grows with equal cheerfulness, 1f not
with equal vigor, in the grass of old pastures and on hillocks
of hemlock loam. One of its peculiarities is the lazy trick it
seems to have of resting for a whole season and then going
placidly on its way as 1f nothing unusual had occurred. I say
“seems to have’’ because not very much is definitely known
about it, but in one case, at least, the fact is beyond dispute.
Several years ago, I found a number of the plants grow-
ing on a barren hilltop where even moss had a hard struggle
for existence. I dug two or three plants and carried them to
my garden where they lived in apparent content the remainder
of the season. The next year they failed to appear, but fortu-
nately the spot was not disturbed and the succeeding summer
they came up, hale and hearty, though they did not produce any
fertile spikes. Since then, they have grown and fruited regu-
larly and are larger than they were in their original home,
though they are still rather small.
While there are about twenty species of Ophioglossum
known, there is but one, or possibly two, found in Northeastern
America—a fact which no one but the scientific botanist will
greatly regret. ;
THE CACTUS AND THE DESERT
By VWiitteaRrDp oN] Grae
CCORDING to the idea of evolution held by adherents
of the Darwinian theory, the cactus is the response of
vegetation to desert conditions. Its thorns and spines are re-
garded as defenses originated by the plant for the protection of
its edible pulp and precious moisture. It is looked upon as a
_case of the survival of the fittest. Plants not heavily enough
armed to resist the attacks of grazing animals are supposed to
have perished long ago, leaving only the most resistant to
populate the desert.
While it 1s certainly true that the cacti are excellent illus-
trations of the survival of the fittest, they probably did not
attain their present forms in just the way that the early evolu-
tionists imagined. It is no longer believed that they have
originated by gradual change helped on by the animals that ate
the less efficiently armed. ‘They probably first appeared about
as we find them now. Probably, also, these forms did not arise
in the desert but originated on the edge of it in response to
various conditions. It should be remembered that the struggle
for existence is not alone the struggle for sufficient moisture.
Lack of light will as surely kill green plants as lack of water.
In the desert light is always abundant. Given, then, a plant
that can endure long sieges of drouth it may find the dryer
regions of the-earth desirable places of residence. Probably
the cactus moved into the desert because the struggle for exist-
ence was less strenuous there. Too much water is as bad for
ES SA MEERECAN = BO LANIST 87
most plants as too little, but the water lily and a few others
adapted to deep water have escaped the crowd of plants by
moving into the lakes and ponds in a manner similar to the
movement of the cactus into the desert.
Cactus are not without their arborescent forms.
(Courtesy of Guide to Nature)
The spines of the cactus, instead of being reactions to the
attacks of animals, appear to be caused by desert conditions.
Wherever the air is dry, the vegetation, no matter what family
of plants it belongs to, is likely to be armed. Moreover, cacti
88 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
grown in a moist atmosphere tend to lose their spines, and even
in some cases to put on leaves.
The thousand or more species of cactus are all American,
though they are now to be found in many parts of the Old
World. The dry regions in other parts of the earth, however,
The cactus is the response of vegetation to
desert conditions.
(Courtesy of Guide to Nature)
have forms that are almost identical with those of the Cacia:
but they belong to other plant families, among which the —
spurge family is prominent. Many of these curious spurges
a>...
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 89
are found in cultivation in the warmer parts of the world or in
greenhouses elsewhere.
The cacti are not without their arborescent forms as our
illustrations show. The stems of such forms are for the most
part pulpy, like the smaller species, the fibrovascular bundles,
There appear to be an abundance of thick
and leathery leaves.
(Courtesy of Guide to Nature)
often as large as broomsticks, forming a framework on which
the other tissues of the stem are arranged. All the work of
food-making goes on in the stem, the outer layers of which are
90 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
green like the leaves of other plants for this purpose. In some
species there appears to be an abundance of thick and leathery
leaves, but a careful examination will show these to be really
flattened stems. The spines that abound on most species are
sometimes regarded as the remains of leaves but botanists are
not agreed on this point. 3
AN ABNORMAL FLOWER OF CALOPOGON
By Epwin. DD Eur
MONG a great many flowers of the grass pink (Calopo-
gon pulchellus) in a bog near Hammond, Indiana, July
6, 1914, I found a single example which showed striking ab-
normalities as illustrated in the accom-
panying figure. [his scemerhatunere
are apparently but two sepals and two
petals when normally there should be
three and three. The apparent absence
of a third sepal is explained by. the
fusion of two, the tipsm@nmaidese a i)
distinctly but very little separated.
There are but two petals in reality, as
the lip is entirely absent, not showing
even in a vestigial state, at least to the naked eye.
The absence of the lip does not seem to be of any signifi-
cance, but it is interesting that the fusion of the two sepals is
exactly what is prevalent in the genus of moccasin flowers
(Cypripedium) which is regarded as the most primitive genus
of orchids. If of any significance, this would, of course, be a
case of reversion. It is possible, however, that the absence of
the lip causes the fusion. In any event these abnormalities are
very rare and interesting.
OUR GERARDIAS
BY DR We We. BAILEY
MONG the most regal of our summer wildflowers, are the
false foxgloves.of the genus Gerardia. Belonging, as
do the true foxgloves to the figwort family (Scrophulari-
aceae), they are all considered to be clandestine or root para-
sites. This fact is diagnosed by their habit of blackening in the
process of drying. Even the most rapid operators often fail to
procure good specimens.
With us in New England, the plants are about’ equally
divided by color into two groups. In the one wherein the
flowers are yellow, the plants are large and stately, with bell-
like corollas an inch or more in length. The species most fa-
miliar to us is G, pedicularia which is viscid and glandular with
deeply cut leaves and corollas thin and delicate in texture. It
is generally from one to two feet high and when found is often
abundant. In this species the corollas are almost always pierced
by bees near the base. They probably find the hairy stamens an
impediment. |
Gerardia flava grows much more scattered and in the deep
woods rather than, as is the case with the preceding, on the
borders. It is a showy plant to meet with in a lonely wood path
and can usually be taken home in good condition, while the
blossoms of pedicularia fall too easily.
Another tall species formerly known as the oak-leaved
(quercifoha) is now known as Gerardia virginica, In most
92 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
respects it is much like the last except for its often deeply
parted, or even twice parted leaves. It extends from Maine to
Minnesota and southward.
In the other group of Gerardias, the plants are all low,
some of them even dwarf and the flowers of varying shades of
rose-purple. These usually grow in low sandy soil and are best
known through the common purple gerardia, found every-
where. One who gathers it for the first time expects to reach
home with a pretty bouquet but finds his flowers soon fall. A
kindred species, G. tenwifolia, very like in appearance but with
lighter colored flowers supported on thread-like stems, grows
in dry copses and along woody pathways. ‘Then, lastly, in salt
marshes one finds G. maritima also purple and with thick, fleshy
leaves, the sign of a halophyte.
Truly is gerardia an interesting genus, and well would it
repay cultivation did not its parasitic habit render that nearly
impossible. To grow both plant and host together has hitherto
nearly defied accomplishment. It may be, however, that with
increased knowledge, these mysteries of growth may be solved.
THE ART OF NAMING PLANTS
AXONOMY has its place. It trains the perceptive facul-
ties, teaches orderliness, develops judgment, and
strengthens reason. There is a saving grace in botany not
found in most of the other sciences and this is exercised through
taxonomy more fully than through all the other divisions of
botany combined.
Systematic botany furnishes to the average layman a more
continuous incentive for pleasurable and inspiring contact with
the world about him than any other subject which lays claim to
a place in a cultural course. It may be the primitive phase, but
most great botanists, at least, began at this point, thus illus-
trating in their development the recapitulation theory. Syste-
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 93
matists were never so numerous nor more active than at present,
but all activity is not necessarily progress. Motion up and down
may be spectacular and nothing more.
There is but one reason for the existence of the professional
systematist, viz: to make it easier for others to know plants. If
we fail in this one thing we fail in all. Judging by the indiffer-
ence of the multitude to our work; by the helplessness of the
amateur who tries to acquaint himself with the plants he meets;
by the none-too-well concealed cynicism of our colleagues in
other lines, we are failing in this. Our work has been analytic
and not constructive. We have dismembered organisms and
held up to view their component parts. -We have been looking
for differences and with such amazing success that the funda-
mental resemblances have, for the most part, escaped our
notice. ,
Morphology, physiology, ecology, and economic botany in
its scores of applications have all gone forward by leaps and
bounds, but in spite of, not by the aid of, taxonomy. Not all
taxonomic work has been useless or erroneous. eenness of
observation and great powers of discrimination are not lacking.
It is not so much that what has been done should not have been
done, but rather that more should have been done to relate re-
cent work to that which has gone before. Synthesis should
have followed so closely upon analysis of the elements of our
flora that duplications would promptly have been discovered
and the relations of each element to the other detected and
stated.
We are on the eve of a new era of reconstruction. Al-
ready the pendulum is swinging back toward greater con-
servatism. The dismemberment of genera and the multiplica-
tion of species proceeds more cautiously. This grows out of
the revitalized aim, “make it easier for others to know plants.”’
—Aven Nelson in Science.
RARE SHRUBS FOR DECORATIVE
PLANTING |
By Witearn Ne Grune
LANTING time is again approaching. We do not now re-
fer to spring, with its strenuous hours devoted to getting
the seeds of both food and flowering plants into the soil, but to-
that more leisurely season, Autumn, when man is less busily
employed and nature is doing the planting. In the case of all
but our cultivated plants, autumn, instead of spring, is the true
planting season, and even among the cultivated species there
are some that must be planted in the fall to produce satisfactory
results. The autumn seed-bed is a recognized fixture with
amateur gardners.
Important as autumn planting is, it is overshadowed by
autumn transplanting, which, after all, is only another kind of
planting. At this season nearly all kinds of plants can be
moved with the least possible risk. The leaves, if they have
not already been shed, are being slowly cut off by the plant and
in the soil the roothairs are ceasing to function. The plants
are preparing for a dormant period, and a change in location
affects them but little. The principal danger is that if they are
carelessly transplanted, they may not become settled in their
new situation before freezing weather sets in and so may be
harmed by the alternate freezing and thawing. It should be
more generally known that it is not cold itself, that harms most
plants; it is the heaving of the plants by the frost and the
consequent breaking of the roots that causes the mischief. If
oe
.
j
|
;
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 95
plants are carefully planted and the roots protected by a good
heavy mulch of stable manure or other coarse litter, they are
almost certain to go through the winter unharmed.
Apparently the most difficult part of planting is selecting
what to plant. This phase of the subject has heretofore re-
ceived scant attention, for few have realized how easy it is
Smoke tree enveloped in a nebulous haze of pale purple.
(Courtesy of Meehans’ Garden Bulletin)
to give an air of individuality to the home grounds. The gen-
eral public has been content to go on planting about a dozen
different species of common shrubs, such as lilacs, syringas,
spiraeas and the like when there is a much larger list to choose
from and one that has every advantage on the side of beauty
and decorative usefulness. To be sure the species commonly
~
G6 THE AMERICAN #BOTANITS®
planted have the merit of being exceedingly hardy, very florifer-
ous and almost sure to bloom annually, but many less known
plants have all these characteristics. Even the species com-
monly planted have relatives fully as beautiful and interesting.
The Persian lilac, for instance, costs no more than the familiar
shrub of grandmother's garden and is a much more graceful
and charming plant,
The abundant flowers of the Pearl Bush.
(Courtesy of Meehans’ Garden Bulletin)
It is unlikely that any other spiraea will ever supplant the >
bridal wreath (Spiraea Vanhoutin) but its smaller relative,
known as the snow garland (S. Thunbergii) deserves more
frequent planting. It is one of the earliest of shrubs to bloom
and its wand-like branches laden with small, white, star-shaped
flowers is warrant enough for the common name. About the
time that the snow garland becomes conspicuous in the shrub-
ae ee
Tak AMERICAN “BOTANIST 97
beries, a little known relative of another common species comes
into bloom. This is the cornelian cherry (Cornus mas) which
as anyone familiar with generic names will perceive, is not a
cherry at all, but one of the dogwoods. The red-stemmed dog-
woods (Cornus stolonifera and C. sanguinea) are planted
everywhere for the warm and pleasing effect of their red bark
contrasted with snowbanks, but one who knows only these
species would scarcely recognize the cornelian cherry as belong-
ing to the group. All our native dogwoods have white or
creamy flowers which open as the leaves unfold or after they
are spread. ‘The cornelian cherry, on the contrary, has bright
yellow flowers. which appear before the leaves. It forms a
round headed shrub some ten feet high and, when covered
with its clusters of flowers, is a most conspicuous object and
one that adds much to the appearance of our borders at the
beginning of the vernal season. Later in the year the flowers
are followed by red, purple, or yellow fruits.
In spring, however, shrubs may usually be depended on
to bloom. The great difficulty has always been to secure shrubs
that will bloom after the first burst of spring has passed. Al-
though summer flowering shrubs are rare in comparison with
those that bloom earlier in the year, a number exist, and one
who would give an air of individuality to his grounds should
plant them. First in the list of this kind should be placed the
rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus) a well known plant of old
fashioned gardens that deserves a place in all new ones. Dur-
ing July, August and part of September, it is literally covered
with bell-shaped, blue, pink or white flowers that rather closely
resemble the hollyhock.
The angelica tree (Aralia Chinensis) and the devil's walk-
ing stick (A. spinosa) are two members of the ginseng family
that are easy to grow, curious in appearance and practically
certain to produce great panicles of creamy-white flowers every
August. These plants have few true branches, but they bear
98 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
immense decompound leaves that have all the appearance of
being such. In winter, when the great leaves have fallen, the
stout, thorny stems, stiffly erect, have an odd appearance which
no doubt accounts for at least one of the common names.
One species of tamarisk (Tamarix gallica) blooms in mid-
summer. It has long slender branches thickly set with tiny
leaves like those of the cedar and the minute rosy flowers are
borne in spikes along the branches. It is quite unlike other
common plants and 1s most desirable for the contrasts it makes.
It is a native of the rather dry and sterile pantsyonene) Old
World and will thrive even.in poor soil. Another species,
Tamarix parviflora, blooms earlier in the year and should not
be selected if summer flowers are wanted.
A summer flowering Japanese tree that is coming into
cultivation is the pagoda tree (Sophora Japomca). It bears
long racemes of white flowers set off by the shining leathery
leaves. The tree, itself, is shaped much like a well grown
Persian lilac. The varnish tree (Kolreuteria paniculata) is an-
other species that is not well known at present. It belongs to
the soap-berry family and is therefore akin to the maples and
horsechestnuts. It bears large panicles of bright yellow flowers
at a season when flowering shrubs of any kind are desirable,
and will doubtless become mere common as its merits become
known.
Equally rare in the Northern States, at least, 1s the chaste
tree (Vitex agnus-castus). In late summer it puts forth a pro-
fusion of violet purple flowers disposed in dense terminal
racemes. The whole plant has an aromatic odor when bruised.
Unfortunately the plant is doubtfully hardy north of the Ohio
river, though it is said to thrive in parts of Pennsylvania and
with some winter protection would doubtless endure the winters
much farther north. The interesting nature of the shrub makes
every effort to extend its range worth while.
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 99
Here, too, may be added a not very distant relative of the
soap berry which is commonly known as the smoke tree. This
is really a sumac (Aus cotinus) though it has little resem-
blance to our common kinds. Its attractiveness hes in its clus-
ters of fruit stems or pedicels. The plant rarely fruits, but after
The Japanese Storax.
(Courtesy of Meehans’ Garden Bulletin)
blooming the pedicels lengthen and branch and being covered
with longish hairs make the whole bush appear as if enveloped
in a nebulous haze of pale purple.
The witch hazel (Hamamelis Virginica) which can be
dug in almost any thicket in the Northern States is undoubtedly
the latest of all shrubs to bloom, but it is not the only autumn
100 THE AMERICAN BODANISEH:
flowering shrub. The blue spiraea (Caryopteris mastacantha)
does not begin to open its blossoms until September but it con-
tinues in bloom for a month or more. The plant is not a spiraea,
being more nearly allied to the chaste tree. Its appearance,
however, is much like a low spiraea, which accounts for the
dealer’s name for it. It is also known as Chinese beardwort.
This phase of the subject should not be left without some
mention of the bush clover (Desmodium penduliflorum). It
is neither a bush nor a clover, though it simulates both close
enough to deserve its common name. In late September it is
literally covered with racemes of pink pea-like flowers which
make it very conspicuous. It dies to the ground in winter,
though very shrub-like in appearance.
Coming back to shrubs that will give additional beauty to
our shrubberies in spring, we find a wealth of material from
which to choose, exclusive of the popular favorites. The pearl
bush (Lxochorda grandiflora) is an excellent species for vary-
ing the monotony of viburnums, syringas, and deutzias. As its
common name indicates, the flowers are pearly white and are
produced in abundance on the ends of the branches. The globe
flower (Kerria Japonica) with flowers like small yellow roses
is an interesting addition to the border, not alone because of its
flowers but also on account of its stems which are covered with
green bark that gives a touch of vitality to the shrubbery even
in winter. In autumn it frequently produces a second crop of
flowers. Another species, which for want of a better name is
known as the white kerria (Rhodotypos kerrioides) has rather
larger white flowers that somewhat resemble those of the black-
berry. “Phe shrub forms a compact green head that even dry
weather seems nearly powerless to injure.
The laburnum or golden chain (Cytissus laburnum) 1s
better known in the Old World than it is here, but it is one of
the most attractive of plants. At the blooming season it is
thickly set with long drooping racemes of yellow flowers very
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 101
much like those of the locust in size and shape. When in blos-
som, few shrubs are prettier. The fringe tree (Chionanthes
Virginica) a near relative of the ash, olive, and privet is an-
other attractive species with thick and shining entire leaves and
a profusion of flowers with narrow drooping petals that make
the common name unusually appropriate. The fringe tree is
also related to our lilacs and golden bells (Forsythia) but the
silver bell, though having flowers not unlike the Forsythia, is a
member of the ebony family. To the same family belongs the
storax with white bell-shaped flowers. There are two or three
species of storax in our Southern States, but the plant most
frequently found in cultivation is a species from Japan, Styrar
Japonica.
The rarer shrubs are seldom carried in stock by the smaller
nurseries. These depend upon local patronage and must pro-
vide the common things for which there is a greater demand.
The plants mentioned here, as well as a great variety of others
_ equally interesting may be obtained of the Biltmore Nursery,
nilimore. N.C. ; The Peters Nursery Co., Knoxville, Tenn, or
of Thomas Meehan & Sons, Germantown, Pa. These firms
issue illustrated catalogues that are well worth having for
reference even if one never expects to set out a shrub.
DAPHNE CNEORUM
HE ease or difficulty of propagation makes plants common
or rare. It also largely determines the price of plants,
those difficult of propagation always costing more than those
which may-be readily multiplied. Unfortunately on this ac-
count, some of our most beautiful garden plants are rare or not
as well known as they deserve to be. Daphne cneorum is one
of these. It belongs to that select little family Thymelaeaceae,
one of the few families ef plants that “hasn’t any poor rela-
tions.” It has but one protoplasmic relative: ani thesMascern
States at least, and that is the leatherwood or wicopy (Dirca
palustris. ) |
Daphne cneorum is a native of the mountains of middle
Europe and, like many plants which hail from high altitudes,
is of a low, prostrate or spreading habit. It is an evergreen
and shrubby in character. The branches are supple and in-
clined to be leathery and are well clothed with small, narrow
sessile leaves, oblanceolate in outline and alternately arranged.
The bright pink, deliciously fragrant flowers are produced in
terminal clusters abundantly in May (often earlier) and con-
tinue more or less ‘freely till September or October eidecs
not appear to produce seeds in this country, probably because
we have not the insect to bring about fertilization)» Whe
method of propagation most commonly practiced is layering
which should be done in June.
Daphne cneorum has proved perfectly hardy in Massachu-
setts. It thrives in any fairly good soil but prefers a rich peaty
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 103
soil either in full sun or shade, although it does its very best 1f
planted where it can receive some shade during the hottest part
of the day. It is an excellent subject for the rock garden, or it
may be planted in the hardy perennial border or in beds by it-
self or it may be used as a ground cover among compact grow-
ing shrubs.—Hubert M. Canning in Horticulture.
VITALITY OF AN ORANGE TREE STUMP
By .C) Ho SAUNDERS.
HE house occupied by the writer in California was built at
eile cdee Otlam Orange grove. Pwo or three of the trees
were cut down to make room for the house, which was erected
without a cellar but raised by a low stone foundation wall some
mmcetcersanove the sround. The stump of one of the felled
orange trees is under the house in the dark space between earth
and floor, about ten feet distant from a small window opening
iouulercanden, whence it receives a little light. The curious
part of this story is, that this imprisoned stump, which ceased
to be a tree and became a stump just nine years ago, promptly
put up a number of sprouts and in spite of the darkness and
aridity of its surroundings, still supports a thrifty little crop of
Miciina couple Or treet in length. In all these nine years, the
stump has never received a drop of water from above ground
and is growing in thick dust. Probably the roots have worked
outward beneath and beyond the foundation walls to the region
of winter rains and summer irrigation which the garden enjoys
and so sucks in some moisture. Nevertheless the case seems a
noteworthy one of tree vitality under very discouraging con-
ditions.
Ww
NOTE and COMMENT
Si NW
EVOLUTION REVERSED.—-Dr. William Bateson, president
of the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
intimates that our ideas of evolution need a rearrangement. In
his Presidential Address he suggests that instead of evolution
in general moving from the simple to the complex, that it may
be just the other way about. Usually we have assumed the
appearance of a new characteristic in plants or animals to be
developed de novo to fit the conditions to be met, but Bateson’s
work in plant breeding has convinced him that no character
can arise that was not latent in the cell from the beginning. Ifa
new color appears in a flower, for instance, he explains it by
the loss of some character that caused the normal color or by
the appearance of a color factor that has previously lain dor-
mant in the plant. So with other characters. All are regarded
as existing in the cell and produced or suppressed as circum-
stances determine. Some characters he supposes to originate
by fractionation of the original characters or by a rearrange-
ment of such characters. To illustrate this he cites the case of
the sweet pea which consists of a single purple-and-white
flowered species that up to the present it has been impossible
to cross with any other plant; and yet breeding has produced a
most remarkable series of colors in the flowers. Similar con-
ditions as to color, size, and flavor exist in our various apples
which are regarded as the descendants of a single wild species.
All the different forms are supposed by Bateson to be due to
the loss of some deterrant factor. The old evolution explains
such cases by the reverse of this process; that is, each new form
was assumed to be due to the gain of some character. Dar-
eatin
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 105
win’s idea of the matter seems the more plausible of the two and
we may wait for more evidence before accepting Bateson too
literally. Upon the theory he propounds, all yellow flowered
species should contain in them the determiner for red flowers
and all red fruits possess the capability for yellow ones.
PRAIRIE PLANTS.— The region in which this magazine is
printed is subject: to long summer drouths. When, as fre-
quently happens, no rain falls for from thirty to sixty days or
more in the growing season the effect on vegetation can be
imagined. Cultivated crops often prove entire or partial fail-
ures unless the farmer anticipates the lack of moisture at the
beginning of the season and holds the moisture in the soil by
proper cultivation. Even in seasons of drouth, however, the
wild plants seldom fail to make a crop. The compass plants,
the sunflowers, the wild vervains and many others remain
fresh and green long after the grasses have become dry enough
for prairie fires, but there 1s a noticeable lack of plants that
flower and fruit at the height of the dry season. In these fre-
quent drouths, we see one cause of prairies. Plants that require
a fairly constant supply of moisture can not endure the con-
ditions here and give up the struggle. Seedling trees, though
doubtless often started, sooner or later find a season too dry
fonermemm (Ulatis the prairies are treeless except along the
watercourses. The fires that still occasionally sweep across
such areas are extremely harmful to all species that do not
have some sort of a perennial stem underground. Prairies are
like deserts in that the rainfall is unevenly distributed. There
are no deserts in which some rain does not fall annually, while
some deserts, at certain seasons are as flowery as any meadow.
It is the long intervals between rainy seasons that cause the
death of all but the most resistant plants. In the prairie region
the drouths are of shorter duration but they are still long
enough to eliminate many moisture-loving plants and to pre-
vent the growth of trees.
106 THE AMERICAN BROTANIS.
SEPALS OR PETALS IN HEpatica.—AIll botanical works
tell us that the conspicuous colored parts of the hepatica flower
are sepals, but Edward L. Greene in a recent number of the
Midland Naturalist presents some evidence to the contrary. In
a Wisconsin wood he found a number of these plants from
which not only the colored parts had fallen, but the three green
sepal-like objects that enclose them in the bud as well. Here-
tofore these green objects have been considered as forming an
involucre of three bracts, but if they fall with the other floral
parts, they might be considered as true sepals and the colored
parts as petals. It 1s not uncommon for plants in fruit to re-
tain the sepals though the petals fall early, but if one finds
peduncles of hepatica that have failed to fruit and from which
the green objects have fallen, the evidence that we are dealing
with sepals is rather convincing. - The species that form the
Ranunculaceae or buttercup family present no uniformity as
to the presence or absence of a corolla. Clematis and Anemone,
for example, though having flowers brightly colored, are re-
garded as having no petals, while Aquilegia, Ranunculus, and
Delphinium have petals as well as sepals. |
BERRIES OF SMILACINA STELLATA.—One does not have to
go far in any botanical Manual to discover that those who
make our textbooks are quite as fallible as anybody else. When
they are in doubt they have a reprehensible habit of guessing
at the facts or-of copying irom someonel-elses) Wine miaiter
method sometimes causes them to make absurd mistakes, as did
the author who copied a description of a small Western com-
posite. In the original description a typographical error made
the ray-flowers two feet long, instead of so many inches, but
the purloiner of the description never saw the mistake and’
copied it word for word. When the Manual makers begin to
guess they are not much better off. [or a long time the berries
of the false Solomon’s seal (Smilacina racemosa) were said to
be purple-dotted at maturity, when, in reality, they are so
aon
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 107
marked only when they begin to ripen, being clear red at ma-
turity. Apparently somebody made the mistake and the rest
copied it. A similar error exists in the Manuals regarding the
fruits of an allied species, the starry Solomon’s seal (.Smulacina
stellata). The new Gray’s Manual dodges the point, but the
sixth edition says “berries blackish.” Britton has them “‘green,
with six black stripes, or blackish,’ and Matthews calls the
fruit “spotted”. Wood, who was an acute observer, comes
nearest to the truth but cannot quite get away from the general
idea that the fruit is black, saying “‘dull-ruby-red, nearly black.”
As a matter of fact, the berries until nearly ripe are green in
color, striped from base to apex with six purplish-black lines,
three twice as broad as the others and alternating with them.
Later these black stripes disappear and the berry becomes clear,
dark red. The berries, even at maturity, are sub-triangular in
cross section, not globular as the books have it, with a single
hard seed in each of the angles. The broader stripes of black
mark the line along which the carpels are joined.
CoLoR VARIATION IN RupDBECKIA.—In the November,
1913, number of this periodical, the editor in his discussion of
the variously colored forms of Rudbeckia hirta leaves little
room for new varieties. There is, however, a form which,
while belonging to the general type of FR. hirta var. annulata,
differs from it in that the outer ends of the rays are not colored
a solid brownish red, but are only spotted. In the specimen
which [ found and planted in my garden the spots are. more
reddish than brown. This plant was found in rather dry gritty
or sandy soil in an open field toward the northern end of New
Rochelle, N. Y. It bore two flower heads; one as described
above, the other with the ordinary yellow rays. The day be-
fone,2at Scarsdale, N: Y., in a rather damp spot, 1 found a
specimen of FR. hirta var. bicolor. In this the inner part of the
rays for about one-sixth of their length are colored a rich
velvety brown.—Edwin W. Humphreys. [Until one searches
108 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
through a good-sized colony of any plant, he does not realize
the amount of variation in the species that is constantly crop-
ping out. Differences in color are possibly the most numerous,
but variations in size, time of blooming, floriferousness and
many other features abound. The philosophical botanist in
taking note of these may find entertainment that is quite as
pleasant as discovering the species themselves.—ED. |
CoLoR CHANGES IN YELLOW FLOWERS.—Plants with
pure yellow flowers rarely produce albinos though they may
give rise to blossoms much paler than ordinary. These are
often spoken of as primrose-colored forms. In Composites
with yellow or orange-yellow rays, a number of these paler
forms have been distinguished and named. It would appear
from the studies of Prof. T. D. A. Cockerell thateinespatce
color may be due to the dropping out of a “determiner” whose
presence accounts for the deeper color in other flowers. Breed-
<
ing experiments have shown that the primrose color is “re-
cessive’ to orange yellow, as the evolutionists say, and breeds
cut according to Mendelian principles. Sections of some of
the flowers show that the difference in color is largely due to
a difference in the amount of pigment in the cells, though the
pigment itself may be paler in the aberrant forms. The phe-
nomena of these colors are doubtless akin to the condition in
normally red flowers or fruits which on occasion produce yel-
low variations.
DoctTorATEs IN Botany.—Each year the colleges and
universities turn loose a new crop of Doctors—not the medical
variety, which is likely first to come to mind and which has
special schools for its production—but Doctors of Philosophy.
During the past seventeen years 2,786 degrees of this kind have
been conferred in science. The crop for 1914 is reasonably
good and consists of 241 degrees though it is probably regarded
as a short crop by many who would add a handle to their
names. It will probably be no consolation to such to be re-
——
TRAE SANMERICAN BOLTANIST 109
minded of the aphorism that “the man who needs a degree
never ought to have one.” In the recent distribution of these
honors, it is interesting to note that the botanists were out in
full force and carried away 34 degrees, being only surpassed
im this respect by the chemists. There should now be 275
botanical Doctors in the country—at least that number of de-
grees has been conferred on botanists in the time covered by
thesrecords.
RATTLESNAKE FERN WitH Two FrRonps.—In confirma-
tion of what was said in a recent number of this magazine re-
garding the form called Botrychium dichronuwm, Miss Adella
Prescott writes : “Two years ago, I found in this vicinity [Cen-
tral New York] a specimen of Botrychium Virginianum hav-
ing two sterile fronds. I found it late in the season (Septem-
ber or October) and there is no sign of a fertile frond on either
of the sterile ones. One of the fronds was yellow and faded,
evidently an old frond though still perfect in shape, while the
other was fresh and green.” It may be added in this connec-
tion that the Botrychiums are a very provident lot of plants.
They usually plan for several seasons in advance and careful
dissection will often show the buds in successively smaller
sizes, for five seasons to come, enclosed in the base of the stipe.
That more than one bud may develop on occasion there seems
to be no reason to doubt. The dichronum form, however,
grows in warmer regions and its two fronds are due to another
cause. One frond is the frond from a previous season which
the milder climate has permitted to remain until the frond of
the succeeding season is spread.
FLour From FLowers.—Although the title of this para-
graph would seem to indicate that certain flowers may provide
the basis for bread-making, it was not our intention to give
this impression, though it 1s said that the pollen of the stami-
nate cat-tail flowers is sometimes used for bread-making in
India. At present we are interested in pointing out the fact
110 THE AMERICAN 2BOTANTSa
that the word, flour, has really been derived from the word
which designates the blossom of a plant. To most people the
flower is the best part of the plant. So settled is this, that ama-
teur gardeners may often be heard to speak of their flowers
when only leaves and stems are in sight. In a similar way,
then, the flour was the best part of the meal; one might say
the flowering part, just as we now speak of the efflorescence
of a salt to indicate the fine powder that often forms upon it.
The idea of a blossom is also embalmed in various other words
with which we rarely associate it at present. For instance, to
florish once meant to bear flowers in profusion, though we
now speak of a plant as florishing if it merely produces an
abundance of leaves. The word, however, indicates how closely
the idea of the general wellbeing of the plant and floriferous-
ness are connected. Florid, again, originally meant covered
with flowers. We still speak of flowery discourse or florid
language and by a sort of extension of the idea, of a florid com-
plexion. The word florin, which has been in use for centuries
to designate various foreign coins also shows a derivation from
the flower. The first florin was coined in Florence but did not
take its name from that city. It was called a florin because it
bore a flower—a lily—upon it. The word flower originally
came from the Latin flos or floris.
JoHN BurrouGHs on “NATURE Stupy.’’—I have a sus-
picion that “nature study’’ as now followed in the schools—or
shall I say in the colleges ?— this class-room peeping and prying
into the mechanism of life, dissecting, probing, tabulating, void
of free observation and shut away from the open air—would
have cured me of my love for nature. For love is the main
thing, the prime thing, and to train the eye and ear and acquaint
one with the spirit of the great out-of-doors, rather than a lot
of minute facts about nature is, or should be, the object of
nature study. Who cares about the anatomy of the frog? But
to know the live frog—his place in the season and the land-
Eh AVE RICANS Oo ANTS. 111
scape and his life history—is something. If I wanted to instill
the love of nature in a child’s heart, I should do it in the first
place through country life, and in the next place through the
best literature, rather than through class room investigations
or through books of facts about the mere mechanics of nature.
Biology is all right for those who wish to specialize in that
branch, but for the mass of pupils it is a waste of time. Love
of nature cannot be commanded or taught, but in some minds
it can be stimulated.—From “Our Friend John Burroughs.”
ABSORPTION OF SALTS BY PLANTsS.—Plants absorb a much
greater amount of water than they ever use in building up their
parts. In some cases the amount used seems almost incredible.
The common mustard is said to use 900 pounds of water for
each pound of dry matter the plant contains. It is well known,
Of course, that there is a constant influx of water at the roots
and as regular an outflow from the leaves in the form of water
vapor. This current of water through the plant is called the
transpiration stream. This stream was formerly thought to be
of service to the plant by bringing in the mineral salts used, but
some investigations made by Heinrich Hasselbring has shown
that the amount of mineral matter (ash) in a plant in no way
depends on the amount of the transpiration stream. The trans-
piration from two sets of plants of the same species, one in
sun and the other in shade, was measured and, though the
plants in the sun gave off the more moisture, the set in the
shade was found to contain the more ash. This seems to show
that the absorption of mineral by plants does not depend upon
the amount of water absorbed. Probably a large part of the
water taken in is simply used in keeping the plant cool, just
as our perspiration regulates the heat of our own bodies.
_ OriciIn oF TUBERS IN RUE ANEMONE.—Among the in-
teresting features of plant life to the beginning botanist, 1s the
sight of the several elongated tubers that cluster at the base of
the rue anemone’s stem. The arrangement is not exactly like
112 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
that of any other plant. There are plenty of plants that bear
tubers, but in most cases these organs are formed at the end of
short subterranean branches, or else there is a single tuber from
which the aerial stems grow. In the rue anemone the tubers
radiate from the base of the stem and their position has induced
Richard Vogt to watch the young seedling to see how they are
formed. His conclusions are reported in the Midland Natural-
ist. The seedling plant rarely produces more than one leaf the
first year, exclusive of the cotyledons. The primary root pro-
duces a few secondary roots at its base and then dies. Later
the caulicle or hypocotyl, as the stem below the cotyledons is
called, increases in diameter and acts as a place of food storage
during the first winter. When growth is resumed, two or three
leaves are produced and from the base of each a root arises
which by autumn has assumed the tuber-like form with which
we are familiar. Each succeeding leaf appears to form one of
these tuberous storehouses. It thus turns out that what we
commonly call tubers in this plant are not true tubers, for the
latter are modified stems and not roothike in origin. The com-
mon potato is therefore a tuber, but the sweet potato is not; it
is a tuberous root much like the objects from which the rue
anemone stem is produced.
THE CABBAGE IN PHILOLOGy.—When we speak of a cab-
bage head, we rather overstate things, for the word, cabbage,
itself means head if the students of language are correct. In
the Latin tongue, caput signifies head. The French equivalent
is caboche and in the English this becomes cabbage. The cab-
bage, however, is only one form of the species. The kohl rabi,
cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts and broccoli are other well
known forms. All these are often designated by the Anglo-
Saxon word cole which is also derived through the Latin from
the Greek kaulos meaning a stem. In the Latin the word be-
comes caulis and in the Scotch, Icelandic and other Northern
languages it becomes cal, cawl, kal, cole and kale. ‘The modern
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 113
French term for cabbage is chow which is also derived from
the Latin caulis. From chou has been derived the term cold-
slaw to designate cabbage prepared as a salad. The word was
originally cole-chou. Cauliflower is readily seen to be derived
from caulis and flower (floris in the Latin). Collard, the name
of a kind of cabbage common in southern markets is a corrup-
tion of colewort, and kohl rabi was originally the Italian cavoli
rape or rape stem—rape being another species closely related to
the cabbage.
OsAGE ORANGE AS A DyeE-woop.—It does not seem to be
generally known that the osage orange (Maclura pomifera)
so familiar as a hedge plant in the Middle West, is the source
of a dye of some importance. The heart wood is orange yellow
in color and it is from this wood that the dye is obtained. F. \W.
Kressman recently reported to the American Chemical Society
that an examination of wood from Texas showed that it con-
tained moric and moritannic acid like the tropical dye-wood,
fustic, and in about the same amount. A comparative series
of dyeing experiments showed that the osage orange wood is
fully as valuable as fustic for dyeing, both as to the color,
which is a clear yellow, and as to its ability to stand light,
weather, washing, etc., without fading. Notwithstanding the
way in which aniline colors are pushing to the front, there is a
considerable traffic still carried on in natural dye-woods, such
as logwood and the like. Now that a tremendous disturbance
exists in the countries producing most of the aniline dyes, we
may yet have to depend on these domestic dyes as we did, to a
considerable extent, during the Civil War.
NuMBER OF Rays IN HELIANTHUs.—Until one has
counted the ray-flowers in a number of sunflower heads, he
does not realize the amount of variation of which they are
capable. A count of 351 heads of Helianthus grosse-serratus
shows that the average number of rays 1s 15, but there is a
wide distribution of the numbers. Five heads had 10 rays
114 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
each and one had 24. A surprise in this count was that there
were thirty heads with 21 rays each. When these numbers
are represented in the form of a graph, there are two peaks,
one on 13 and the other on 21. A‘s a contrast to this species,
243 heads of the common Jerusalem artichoke (A. tuberosus)
were counted. In this species the average number of rays is 12.
Three heads had but 8 rays and one had 15. The variation in
the latter species is much less than in H. grosse-serratus, and
the graph has a single peak. From this one might infer that
in Hf. grosse-serratus there is a form included which might be
brought out by breeding. An interesting piece of work would
be the counting of the ray-flowers of all our composites and
deciding what the average number in each species is. Counts
from different localities might be undertaken and counts in
different seasons made to discover the effects of soil, moisture,
etc., if any. The results would throw considerable light on
the tendency of plants to vary in different directions.
Extract oF WitcH HaAzeL.—Some idea of the number
of contusions and abrasions that are sustained by luckless hu-
manity in the course of a year may be gained from the fact
that the annual output of witch hazel extract is about twenty-
five thousand barrels. According to Gardening, the home of
the witch hazel industry 1s in Connecticut. The bulk of the
extract comes from a limited district in eastern Middlesex
county. New York, New Hampshire and Massachusetts sup-
ply most of the remainder. The production of the extract is
quite simple. All that is required is a primitive still and some
means of cutting the hazel brush into proper lengths. In a
similar way extract of wintergreen 1s made in New York and
Pennsylvania from birch twigs. It may be news to some that
birch 1s the source of wintergreen extract, but the oil contained
in the two plants‘is so near alike that it cannot be distinguished
chemically and that from the birch has long been substituted
for wintergreen since the difficulties in gathering an adequate
aE AMERICAN (BOLTANIST 115
supply of the latter plant are considerable. However, since
oil of wintergreen can now be made synthetically in the chemi-
cal laboratory, it is likely that the birch stills will soon fall
-into disuse.
Two-SEEDED ACORNS.—We often know the least about
the most familiar things and this is likely to be the case with
more than one botanist in regard to the fruits of the oak. We
are prone to think of acorns as one-seeded fruits, but if the
original intention of nature were carried out, we should prob-
ably call it a several seeded capsule or something of the kind.
As a matter of fact, the young acorn is three celled with two
ovules in each cell which ought to give at least six seeds to an
acorn, but it does not work out that way. ‘The single seed that
we usually find in the acorn at maturity is an interesting case
of selfishness for it has developed at the expense of its fellow
ovules and simply crowded them out of existence. Often their
flattened remains may be found in the ripe acorn. When each
young acorn contains several ovules it is but natural that occa-
sionally an extra ovule may have such a start that its life can-
not be squeezed out in this way and thus we find two seeds in
one acorn. Rarely three seeds are found but usually only two
occur, Such occurrences are said to be not uncommon in the
white oak (Quercus alba) the chestnut oak (Q. prinos) the
British oak (Q. robur) and the red oak (Q. rubra). The phe-
nomenon appears to be most common in oaks with large
acorns. In the red oak, according to J. G. Jack who examined
two hundred acorns taken at random from a large number, as
many as 80% may have two seeds. While on this subject, it
may be interesting to point out that the genus to which the
cherry, peach, and almond belong has a pistil which normally
contains two ovules though only one develops. We ought to
find two embryos in every cherry pit. That the condition is
not uncommon in the almond is attested by the frequency of
philopenas when the nuts are passed to the young folks.
FD NW.
EDITORIAL
SP
The reason for the tardy appearance of the present number
of this magazine is the fact that the editor has been hampered
by a lack of the right kind of manuscript. With surprising
egotism he feels perfectly equal to writing the whole issue every
time, but with becoming modesty he prefers that others be
given first place if they will take it. So he has held back a bit.
Of course all of our old readers know that the numbers will
ultimately appear; it is only the newer subscribers that fear the
magazine has suspended publicaticn when it does not appear
on time. However, we need more manuscript, but it must be
of the right kind. During the past quarter we have refused
enough material to fill the magazine several times, because it
did not exactly fit our scope. It does seem, however, as if
among all our readers there must be many more with eyes to
see the interesting things in plant life and sufficient literary
ability to describe them attractively. We are well aware that
our readers are not mere plant collecting amateurs—they would
not be our readers if they were—and this makes their failure
to contribute their observations all the more remarkable. If no
response is received to our appeal for more manuscripts, the
editor will be tempted to issue through the magazine a new
booklet he has been making on the colors of flowers.
We have been highly honored—the New York Public
Library has asked us to send them this magazine regularly.
However, they*ask us to send it free, and, after turning this
proposition over in our minds for a while, we do not feel so
highly honored after all. We rather dislike to be taken for
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 117
“easy marks.” It must be that they consider us such or they
would not invite us to contribute from our own resources when
their own are so much larger. Still, they write that “we are
receiving in this manner a large number of scientific publica-
tions” so we are either off in our reasoning or there are a lot
of other publishers that are in that condition. What puzzles
us is why we should send the magazine to any individual or
group of individuals without receiving an adequate return for
it. If we could only work the butcher and the grocer in the
Same way, it would not seem so strange. Why, even the
printer who helps make the magazine expects pay for his work!
Libraries must take the publishers of botanical publications for
millionaires. As a matter of fact they have to have some
means of their own or their publications would not last long as
the support of the public goes at present. We believe it would
do the average New Yorker good to read this magazine regu-
larly, but we are deterred from providing this reading free by
the old adage that “Heaven helps those who help themselves.”
We are sure he will remember what he reads longer if he has to
give up a dollar for it now and then. We commonly do not
value highly what we get for nothing. We are therefore going”
to forego the honor of having this journal on file in New York.
If the denizens of that benighted burg cannot spend a dollar
annually for two dollars worth of botany, let them read the
“large number of scientific publications” that other and more
generous editors are sending the library free. One of our sub-
scribers who went into one of New York’s largest book stores
recently and asked for a copy of The American Botanist, was
informed by the young lady clerk that “we don’t have no call
for them nature study things.”’ We begin to suspect that New
York is too much engrossed with stocks and politics to get
much real enjoyment out of life.
118 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
BOOKS AND WRITERS
The Ohio State University has recently-published a cata-
log of “Ohio Vascular Plants” by Prof. John Huy Sehatmer
which shows that there are more than two thousand different
species in the State. Of this number, about one-fourth are re-
garded as exotics. The catalog is a numbered list of plants
with their Latin and Brittonesque names and the distribution
and abundance of each species given. The nomenclature is
that of the second edition of the “Illustrated Flora” and there-
fore follows the “American Code.” In this tist)thesclasses:
sub-classes, orders, families and sub-families are included in
their proper places, making it easier for the user of the list to
keep the run of plant relationships. This is one of the first lists
to place the water lilies among the Monocotyledons. They now
appear between the pond weeds and the eel-grass families. Pre-
vious to this catalog, four lists had been issued by Kellerman.
The new list 1s therefore likely to be pretty complete and is sure
to be of much value to botanical students.
Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Co., have begun the publica-
tion of a “Thresholds of Science” series designed for those
wholly unfamiliar with this department of knowledge. The
first volume in the series is entitled “Botany” by E. Brucker
and is apparently a translation of a work originally issued in
France. It would probably be a difficult task for anyone to
condense a guide to all phases of botany into one book of less
than two hundred pages, and the author has contented himself
with an account of plant structure and physiology followed by
an outline of the classification of flowering plants as laid down
by Bentham and Hooker. Since most people who take up
botany as a pastime are chiefly interested in the names and re-
lationships of plants, this choice of subject matter is probably
a wise one. It avoids, however, all mention of plant breeding
and ecology, two subjects much in the foreground at present.
Cg ee
a
ae PANERICAN BODLANI ST, 119
There are upwards of two hundred illustrations, mostly of
plant parts which should aid the beginner in his study of rela-
tionships. The volumes in “The Thresholds of Science” series
sell for 50 cents each.
When the author of “The Natural History of the Farm”
was a boy, he was lucky if he had other books than “*Wood’s
Natural History” as a guide to the wild life about him. Now
there are a multitude of guides to every phase of nature and
yet the reviewer doubts whether any or all of them would be as
useful or entertaining to the boy on the farm or the city child
turned back to nature as this new natural history. Prof. Need-
ham, the author, appears to have touched upon all the features
of outdoor life with which the child in the country is likely to
come in contact. The book is really a volume on nature study,
but the whole subject has been treated so sympathetically and
the academic part so skillfully concealed that the reader is not
likely to conmect the idea of study with it. Any boy or girl
who has to be urged to read the book through must be lacking
somewhere. It ought to be a positive delight to fill up those
outlines at the end of the chapters. Older readers are likely to
remark, “If I had only had a book like that when I was young.”’
One cannot adequately describe the charm of such a book; it
must be seen and read to be properly appreciated. There are
about fifty chapters and more than a hundred illustrations but
this means nothing; it is what is in the chapters that counts.
“The Natural History of the Farm” is published by the Com-
Socwimimblishine Co., Ithica, N. Y., at $1.50.
GARDENING IN AMERICA.—At least the phase of it that
has to do with the cultivation of flowering plants in the open—
is a long way behind the practice in England. It is therefore
not surprising that the bulk of the gardening books still comes
‘from across the water. One of the newer books of this nature
is the “Hardy Flower Book” by E. H. Jenkins which is de-
voted entirely to the growing of the hardy herbaceous peren-
~ 120 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
nials. It consists of eleven chapters devoted to cultural direc-
tions and a discussion of the flowers suitable to special situa-
tions followed by an alphabetical list of the more desirable
plants, covering some seventy pages. In this second part the
individual species are described and their more desirable
characteristics indicated. Lists of flowers for special purposes
are also given. There are fifty illustrations and a colored
frontispiece. Books of this kind are very useful for con-
sulting in connection with gardening operations in this country,
but it should be remembered that the climate of America and.
England is somewhat different and the directions given can
not be too literally followed here. The book is for sale by
Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, at $1.00.
PHENOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS \VANTED.—F. L. Mulford,
of the Bureau of Plant Industry, Department of Agruculture,
desires observations on the leafing, flowering and fruiting of all
our native plants and will be glad to send record blanks to any-
one who will fill them out. The information called for includes
the dates at which the flowers open, and on which the last
flowers fall, when the fruits begin to color, when they are
fully ripe, etc. Information is also wanted as regards soils,
frost, color of the flowers, etc. Compilations of such data from
a number of widely distributed observers will be of value to
students of many phases of botany and there should be a
hearty response to the call for aid.
y.N .
Vol. 20. No. 4 . Whole Number 103
AMERICA
BOTANIS
NOVEMBER, 1914
25 Gents a Copy; $1.00 a Year
WILLARD N. CLUTE & CO.
JOLIET, ILLINOIS
The American Botanist
A Quarterly Journal of Economic 6 Ecological Botany
WILLARD N. CLUTE, EDITOR
SUBSCRIPTIONS.—The subscription price of this magazine is $1.00 a
year or $1.50 for two years, payable strictly in advance. Personal checks
on small or distant banks must contain ten cents for collection fees. The
magazine is issued on the 20th of February, May, August and November.
BACK NUMBERS.—Volumes 1 to 10 inclusive consists of 6 numbers
each, Vols. 11 to 13 of 5 numbers each and all later volumes of 4 numbers
each. The first 18 volumes may be had for 75 cents a volume, or the set
will be sent for $9.00. A full set contains 2312 pages.
THE FERN BULLETIN
In 1913, at the completion of its twentieth volume, The Fern Bulletin was consoli-
dated with this magazine. The back volumes average more than 100 pages each, and
since they cover the entire formative period of American Fern study they are invaluable
for reference. The majority of new forms discovered in recent years have been
described in its pages. First six volumes out of print. A set of vols. 7 to 20 will be sent
for $7.00. A sample volume, our selection for 40 cents. An extended description of the
contents of the volumes may be had for the asking.
WILLARD N. CLUTE & CO., PUBLISHERS
209 WHITLEY AVENUE, JOLIET, ILL.
ENTERED AS MAIL MATTER OF THE SECOND CLASS AT THE POST OFFICE, JOLIET, ILL.
The Guide to Nature
Edited by EDWARD F. BIGELOW
Is devoted to commonplace nature with uncommon
interest. It will cost you but ten cents to get a copy
and let it tell its own story.
The Agassiz Association, Inc., is the oldest and
largest organization for the study of all nature. It
consists of Members and Chapters.
Full particulars free upon application.
Address,
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SOUND BEACH ~~ CONNECTICUT
(niet At
More or less globular balls of green among the
“
leafless branches.
THe AMERICAN BOTANIST
VOL. XX JOETED, ILL. NOVEMBER, 1914 No. 4
Gxcellent herbs had our fathers of old,
Gxcellent herbs to ease thelr pain,
Mlexanders and marigold
Cyebright?, orrts and elecampane,
Basil, rocket, valerian, rue
(almost singing themselves they run),
Vervain, dittany, call-me-to-you,
Cowslip, melilot, rose-of-the-~sun.
Anything green that grew out of the mould
Was an excellent herb to our fathers of old.
—Kipling.
THE MISTLETOE
By WILLARD N. CLUTE.
HE traveler from a more northern region, who happens
to journey into our Southern States after autumn winds
have stripped the leaves from the trees, is hkely to observe
shortly after he has crossed the Ohio River or passed through
the region in our country in the same general latitude, that
there is still more or less green in the treetops. At first glance
it appears as if, here and there, groups of twigs had failed to
conform to the general condition of leaflessness and were still
sporting their summer verdure, but a second survey, convinces
him, especially if he be botanically inclined, that he is getting
a view of that famous plant, the mistletoe.
122 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
To most dwellers in the South, the mistletoe is no rarity,
but to less accustomed eyes, these more or less globular balls
of green among the leafless branches are likely to be of more
interest. Though we no longer hold the mistletoe in ‘super-
stitious reverence as a protector from witches, ghosts and
demons, and have perhaps cause to doubt its efficacy in certain
amusements of the winter holidays, we may still find its curious
manner of growth sufficient warrant for more than a passing
interest in it.
The common mistletoe, whether European or American,
is really a shrub, but it always grows as a parasite on some
other woody plant. In Europe it has been found on the walnut,
poplar, linden, elm, locust, willow, ash, thorn, pear, apple,
mountain ash, oak and almond, as well as upon various species
of conifers, and in one instance, at least, it has been found
parasitic upon another plant of its own kind. Our native plant
is nearly as catholic in its selection of hosts. Both species are
fond of trees with soft, sappy bark and thrive best on such
specimens. The seeds are covered with a soft and exceedingly
sticky pulp which causes them to adhere to the feet and bills of
birds that feed upon them and this substance also serves to at-
tach them to the branches of other trees in the proper position
for growth. The cotyledons contain chlorophyll and it is said
that the seed will not develop unless it is exposed to the light,
an apparent provision of nature to ensure that growth shall not
commence until the seed is advantageously situated.
When the mistletoe begins to grow it sends a suckerlike
root, called a “sinker’’, into the soft tissues where wood and
bark meet in the body of its host and takes therefrom part of its
nourishment. The fact that its leaves are green shows that it
is not wholly dependent upon its host for food, but the green
is of a yellowish and sickly hue and of itself proclaims the plant
to be a parasite. Since the trees parasitized by the mistletoe
annually add new layers of wood and bark to the trunk, in the
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 123
ordinary course of events the parasite would soon be covered
by the increasing bulk of the tree. The mistletoe, however, is
too adroit to be so easily overcome and just as the encroaching
wood threatens to bury it, side roots are sent out which pene-
trate the bark lengthwise of the stem and these send out new
“sinkers.”’ This process is repeated annually during the life
of the plant.
The beliefs which were once associated with the mistletoe
originated long before the dawn of history. The plant held a
prominent place in the Druid rites and was gathered for their
winter festivals by a white robed priest who cut it with a
golden knife. It was received in a white cloth; to let it touch
the ground being counted disastrous. When the priest had
given it to the people it was hung up over doors and in other
places about the house to keep off evil. From its connection
with such heathen rites, its use was long forbidden by the
Church. In Norse mythology, the blind Hodur is fabled to
have killed that darling of the gods, Baldur, with a spear
tipped with mistletoe, it having been decreed at his birth that
nothing that grew on the earth should harm him. The other
gods combined to bring Baldur to life and the mistletoe was
ordered never to work harm again, to which it agreed, pro-
vided it was not allowed to touch the earth. Thus we still
hang sprays of the plant high at Christmas time as an emblem
of peace and good will.
Our mistletoe is one of some four hundred species of the
Loranthaceae most of which are found in the warmer parts of
the world. The flowers of our plant are small and insignifi-
cant, but several tropical species are more fortunate in this
respect, having brightly colored blossoms which are often six
inches or more across. The European mistletoe is known to
science as Viscum album, while the American plant is Phoro-
dendrom flavescens. All the beliefs and customs which are
connected with the mistletoe by right belong to the European
124 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
species only, but our plant is so like the overseas species that
only the scientist would notice the difference. Its use at Christ-
mas time, therefore, may go unchallenged, partly because the
scientist usually does not extend his investigations to such un-
technical matters as holiday merrymaking, and partly because
of the old proverb that “When one has a mind to do a thing,
any excuse will answer.”’
THE FRINGED GENTIAN
BY WAN Bart eye
HE fringed gentian lays claim to the loveliest days of the
whole year. June, which promises so much, which is
replete with sunlight and blossom, may indeed vie with Oc-
tober. In certain moods one may prefer that time of riotous
growth, and the “rare” days of Sir Launfal. The gentian days
are melancholy, the saddest of the year—
“When summer gathers up her robes of glory,
And like a dream of beauty glides away.”
Yet to those who love them, these days are unequalled. Full
of poetic suggestion, they reinvite one to Tennyson’s Idylls
and the knightly court of Arthur. On such days, one traces in
the early morning, the river and streams by the light mist that
hangs over them. I remember once seeing the Franconia val-
ley filled with the mist till it seemed a new and un-named lake.
Through this medium familiar objects become glorified. It is
the time of Nature’s siesta. The air is golden and not a breeze
stirs the lingering forest leaves. These now wear their warm-
est colors, their browns, siennas and purples, in the long run
more satisfying than the more gorgeous tints of the earlier
season.
There finally comes a morning when one says “The gen-
tian is blooming today.’ This is expressed with the confidence,
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 125
that to the surprise of. some, led ‘Thoreau to say “The Cypri-
pedium tomorrow.” There is nothing remarkable about it.
One simply is en rapport with Nature. Certain signs in the
air, in himself, in the general environment, lead to these in-
tuitions. We cannot always explain fhem any more than the
savage can explain the way in which he guides one through the
forest. Given a certain sort of day and the gentian follows as
a matter of course. In the spring one can as certainly forecast
the arethusa and the painted cup.
We seek the gentian in some lonely meadow or beside
some roadway, bordered by stone walls and shrubbery. The
shy blossoms may be half hidden amidst the umbered tufts of
Osmunda, We exclaim with Miranda—
“The fringed curtains of thine eyes withdraw.”
Few flowers have so human and expressive a presence. One
feels that the meeting is sympathetic and mutual, just as he
does in spring when surprising the earliest hepatica.
There are those who think that this species and the box
gentian (G. Andrewsti) never open. Surely they could never
have seen crintta in the mid-day sunlight of October. As a
matter of fact, both the closed and the fringed gentians open,
or can be persuaded to open. Bees penetrate the azure box of
Andrewsu, while sunlight uncurls the fringes of its still lovelier
cousin. Herein a mistake is often made in gathering it. When
taken home, it should be put, not on the center table withdrawn
from windows, but in the full southern sunlight. The lashes
then unclose and the lobes expand—things of exquisite beauty.
Bryant has done for our plant what Wordsworth did for
the daffodil, Lowell for the birch, or Burns for the daisy. It
seems as if not a word could be added to or withdrawn from
his description. The poem is as perfect and finished as the
flower itself. Even in its habit and time of blooming it is
sharply diagnosed. It should be said, however, that the gen-
126 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
tian really blooms much earlier than October in many places.
I remember once in Conway, Massachusetts, I found it on
Field’s hill on the first of September. It is the lingering blos-
som that the poet celebrates and the woodsman loves—those
reluctant ones that still abide in mid-autumn;
“Till frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is near his end;
Then doth its sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky.”
It is an error to call this flower blue. Indeed, I am still
looking for a really blue flower. “Those that are called so are
almost universally violet, for instance the chickory or Salvia
patens. I find painting the real test of color. Often the sup-
posed tint is wholly non-existent, but apparent from reflections.
of light or sympathies of one hue for another. One never sus-
pects till he tries it, how much the pinch of white on the column
of the cardinal has to do with the gorgeousness of that flower ;
this, and the adjacent gray. I am not an artist, however, and
must not trespass on the preserves of my betters.
Plants, it is well known, have their social relations, their
friendships and antipathies. Often they are intimate and ten-
der with each other. Every wood lover has knowledge of these
associations; as, say, of the golden ragwort with the painted
cup. The fringed gentian in these later days afhliates with
Parnassus grass, certain crimson polygalas, and an abiding
group of knotweeds. With these, too, in swampy spots may
still be found the glowing disks of the bur marigold.
A COMMON WILD FLOWER
AND ITS LEGENDS
By Maup GOING.
HE flowers renowned in song and story are generally the
common things willing to live in anybody’s garden, or
to take care of themselves in uncultivated ground. Some of
them are downright weeds, which, for untold generations, have
dogged the footsteps of man, and, being often in his sight,
have found place in his thoughts also. Few plants, for instance,
have been more celebrated in folk lore than the red-berried
elder which may be seen on any rocky hillside in the more
northern United States or in eastern Canada.
Even before its leaves unfold we can recognize this elder
by its big, round, purple foliage buds. They get through the
winter with what seems the scant protection of four, or at most,
six purple scales, as smooth within as without. The red-
berried elder provides no downy coverings such as protect the
buds of many northern shrubs. Its baby leaves have, so to say,
neither furs nor flannels.
In May the purple scales separate and free a quartette of
compound leaves and a pear-shaped cluster of small greenish
blossoms. ‘The scent of these flowers is not altogether pleasing
to human nostrils, but it is enticing to flies. These little visitors
are almost necessary to the forming of the fruit. The five
small stamens stick out five different ways, like the rays of a
- star, so that it 1s scarcely possible for pollen to reach the pistil
without the help of winged insects. But with their aid, plenty
of fruit forms.
128 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
After the flies have feasted, the elder spreads a second table
for the birds. In late June the berries, turned scarlet, catch
the eye and pleases the fancy of birds, which are so eager for
the fruit that they can scarcely wait for it to get entirely ripe.
Red-berried elder is widely distributed over the northern
world, and many tales are told of it in many lands. In Den-
A pear-shaped cluster of small greenish blossoms.
mark it is thought that the bush is protected by a powerful
being called the “Elder-mother”’, and without her leave it is
not safe to pluck the flowers. This Elder-mother is the “Hul-
dah” of German and Norse mythology, She is the harvest god-
dess of Northern Europe and the queen of the elves. All the
wind and cloud changes which affect the crops, but which do
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 129
not rise to the dignity of storms, are, so it was once believed,
arranged by her. In Grimm’s Fairy Tales she appears as the
Frau Holle who sends the snow and is so old she knows almost
as much as Father Time himself.
Sometimes, so it used to be said, she would come forth as
twilight fell, in the form of a little, bent old woman. Wood-
cutters used to see her in dim forest paths, with milk pails on
her arms. Sometimes she would come to help the tired reap-
ers, belated at their work, and she could cut the grain and bind
it into sheaves with astonishing quickness. In her goddess
form, Huldah is one of the lovliest figures in all heathen
mythology. She is robed in white, has luxuriant golden hair,
and wears a long, glistening veil. From her golden girdle
hangs a key which can unlock all the treasures of the earth.
The little elves, too, were supposed to take a special inter-
est in the elder. Hard by its roots one might find an entrance to
their underground dwelling, and it used to be said that 1f any-
one would stand by an elder bush at twelve o’clock on Mid-
summer night, he might see the King of the Elves go by with
all his retinue.
When Northern Europe was Christianized the heathen
gods and everything connected with them were condemned by
the priests. This bush, once so dear to Huldah and her elves,
then acquired a bad character. It was said that the elder used
to be a tree, till Judas hanged himself on it, but that it has been
accursed and stunted ever since. “The tree of eldre,’ says a
famous old book, “that Judas henge himself upon, for de-
Spayre,’ and in a famous old poem, “The Vision of Piers
Plowman,” we find this allusion to the legend:
“Judas he japed (deceived)
For Jewen silver
And sithen (afterwards) on an eller
Hanged himself.”
This legend of Judas caused the elder to become associated
in song and story with thoughts of grief and death. Thus in
130: THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
Edmund Spenser’s “Astrophel”’, which is a lament for Sir
Philip Sidney, we read:
“Never again let lass put girlond on
Instead of girlond wear sad cypress now
And bitter elder, broken from the bough.”
PITCHER PLANTS
By Mrs. G. T. DRENNAN.
lig is difficult to see why the Sarracenias, which were named
for Dr. Sarrasin of Quebec, should be commonly called
side saddle flowers. Pitcher plant, huntsman’s cup and trumpet
leaf, are descriptive names well merited from the construction
of the leaves. ‘These are all radical from a perennial root, yel-
lowish or purplish green in color and form pitchers or elon-
gated cups of trumpet shape. The unique and beautiful flowers
are nodding, and borne on naked scapes ten inches or more
high. The calyx has five sepals with three colored persistent
bractlets at the base. The corolla has five fiddle-shaped petals,
arching over the greenish yellow styles and the stamens are
numerous.
Sarracenia purpurea is the hardiest of the pitcher plants.
It grows in mossy bogs from Labrador and the Rocky Moun-
tains to the Gulf of Mexico. The curious pitcher-shaped leaves,
six to ten inches long, dilated upward, are constructed with a
usual broad wing on one side and a hairy hood at the summit.
Sarracema flava, known as the yellow trumpet leaf, is
native to the Southern States. It has narrow, winged and
hooded leaves, veined with yellow, and a yellow blossom.
The California Pitcher Plant or Darlingtonia is the hand-
somest and at the same time the most curiously constructed of
our pitcher plants. The hollow twisted leaf is from ten to
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 131
iy
4 / |
SAW:
The California Pitcher Plant.
fourteen inches long, with a broad wing on one side, and a bent
hood to which is attached a narrow, two-winged or forked leaf
three to six inches long. The flower scape six inches above the
hocded leaves bears a very handsome nodding flower with the
winged purple petals and yellow anthers fully displayed. The
leaves are nearly always filled with water and dead insects,
132 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
which scientists have decided the plant has the power of con-
suming for nourishment. Thoreau says the odor of the beauti-
ful and unusual flowers suggests that of sandal wood.
AN ABNORMAL TWAYBLADE
By pwn Dy) kiwi
PLANT of the twayblade (Liparis loeselit) grown in-
doors and in bloom April 22, 1914, produced an ab-
normal flower as shown in the accompanying figure. The
parts of the flower are as usual but the in-
terest lies in the fact that there is no twist
to the ovary and hence the flower is not
inverted as is the case with the vast majority
of orchids. This flower was the basal one.
None of the other four flowers on the plant
had opened by April 29 when it was put into
formalin.
The inversion of the orchid flower is
supposed, by some at least, to be for the
convenience of insects as the lip in this position affords an
excellent alighting place. If this is true, then the lack joan
version might be said to be due to the fact that since this species
is self-pollinated and hence has no need for insect visitors, the
flowers are commencing to have a tendency to remain unin-
verted. The lack of inversion did not prevent pollination and the
ovary was rapidly maturing when preserved. Such reasoning,
however, sounds like teleology which at present is in disrepute.
The lack of inversion was no doubt due to hard condi-
tions as the plant was not protected by glass from the gaseous,
steam-heated air hence there was not sufficient vigor imparted
to the flower to enable it to twist. The remaining flowers did
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 13
ew
not have strength to open at all. The inflorescence was ex-
ceedingly dwarfed being much surpassed by the leaves, while
the reverse is ordinarily true in nature or in specimens under
glass in cultivation.
That the plants are self-pollinated, I have proved to my
satisfaction as they fruit readily indoors under glass where
there is no possible chance for them to be visited by insects.
Neither in nature have I ever seen insects about the flowers.
The pollen masses are found attached to the stigmatic surface
when the flower opens so that as far as the welfare of the
species is concerned the flowers might just as well be cleisto-
gamous and remain closed.
[That the twayblade, whether self-pollinated or not, bears
seeds abundantly in the open is shown by the photograph of a
colony of these plants in an Indiana woodland. The photo-
graph was sent by Albert C. Williiams.—Ed. |
SWEET FLAG AND CALLA
By ADELLA PRESCOT.
NE of the things that is a constant surprise to the amateur
botanist, 1s the relationships that exist between plants
that are very unlike in general appearance, some members of
a family being elegant and aristocratic in habit and flower,
while others, like poor relations, have a full share of the family
virtues under a modest and inconspicuous guise.
Something of this surprise I felt when I discovered that
the humble sweet flag (Acorus calamus) was a near relative
not only of our native calla, but of the exotic calla or “lily of
the Nile’ as well. It is a very common plant growing in
swamps and along the margins of sluggish streams from Nova
Scotia to Florida and far westward. It has a thick creeping
rootstock that is pungent and aromatic and which, being boiled
in syrup and then dried, was a favorite confection of other
days.
The foliage consists of swordlike leaves and the cylindrical
spadix emerging from a scape very much like the leaves is so
inconspicuous that when as a child I discovered it and also
discovered that it was good to eat, I found very few of my
companions who had ever seen it, and we had no suspicion
that it was the flower of the plant. This spadix or fleshy axis
is densely covered with small perfect flowers which are light
greenish-yellow and very inconspicuous.
Everyone knows the elegant calla of the florist, but as it is
an exotic anyway and too suggestive of funerals to be a suitable
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 135
subject for so slight a sketch, I will only mention it in passing
and write of our native calla (Calla palustris) which is perhaps
quite as beautiful though much more modest in habit and size.
_ This charming plant 1s found in cold bogs, often clinging to a
half-submerged log where it holds its flowerlike spathe a little
above the smooth heartshaped leaves while the fleshy roots are
hidden in the slime and ooze. ‘The beautiful spathe 1s white
and of the same rich texture as the greenhouse calla, but, unlike
that, is lat and open while the real flowers are greenish yellow,
very tiny, and closely packed about the oblong spadix. The
plant cannot be called rare, but, owing to its un-hygienic liking
for wet feet, is naturally absent over wide stretches of territory.
Both of these plats are members of the Arum family
very large family, but one whose members are chiefly tropical.
a
Of other northern members, one is the skunk’s cabbage (our
very earliest wildflower, but one that most of us willingly miss )
and Jack-in-the pulpit who contrives, better than some other
clergymen, to combine the modesty of the commoner with the
clegance of the aristocrat.
A TERATOLOGICAL THISTLE
By AvEN NELSON AND J. FRANCIS MACBRIDE.
ASCIATION in plants, causing more or less pronounced
monstrosities in vegetative, floral or fruit characters is
not rare. The writers have never seen, however, a more pro-
nounced or interesting example than the one shown in the ac-
companying illustration. It is that of a specimen of Thistle
(Carduus Drummondit),
The fasciated stem was large, notably flattened and fistu-
lous. The several stems, that evidently had entered into its
makeup, had succeeded in combining their several heads with
equal completeness and more striking results. Lying within the
compact, truncate, ample, lunate-oblong fasciation of floral
leaves was the compounded head. In general aspect it strik-
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 137
ingly simulated a large slightly coiled spinose-hispid caterpillar
some four or five inches long and about an inch in diameter.
If one poked the inflorescence one fairly expected to see it
squirm.
Unversity of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyo.
FOOD PLANTS FROM THE WILD
N the matter of domesticating plants, jet us glance hastily at
what has and what can be done in our country. In De-
Candolle’s treatise we make but a poor showing, indeed. Out
of his 247 cultivated species, but +5 are accredited to the New
World and but three of these—the pumpkin, Jerusalem arti-
choke and persimmon—come from North America. To these
three, Sturtevant added about thirty. The poor showing of
our continent in furnishing food plants, it must be made plain
is not due to original inferiority. The number would have been
vastly greater, as Asa Gray long ago pointed out, had civiliza-
tion begun in this, rather than in the Old World.
Wild fruits abound in North America. The continent is
a natural orchard. More than 200 species of tree, bush, vine,
and small fruits were commonly used by the aborigines for
food, not counting nuts, those occasionally used, and numerous
rarities. In its plums, grapes, raspberries, blackberries, dew-
berries, cranberries and gooseberries, North America has al-
ready given the world a great variety of new fruits. There are
now under cultivation, 11 American species of plums, of which
there are 433 pure bred and 155 hybrid varieties; 15 species of
American grapes with 404 pure and 790 hybrid varieties; 4
species of raspberries with 280 varieties; 6 species of black-
berries with 86 varieties; 5 species of dewberries with 23 va-
rieties ; 2 species of cranberries with 60 varieties, and 2 goose-
berries with 35 varieties. Here are 45 species of American
138 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
fruits with 2,226 varieties domesticated within approximately
half a century. DeCandolle named none of them.
The fruit of the wild plum (Prunus maritima) and in-
habitant of sea beaches and dunes from New Brunswick to the
Carolinas, is a common article of trade in the region in which
it grows, but notwithstanding the fact that it readily breaks
into innumerable forms and is a most promising subject under
hybridization, practically nothing has been done towards do-
mesticating it. Few plants grow under such varied conditions
as our wild grapes. Not all have been brought under subjuga-
tion though nearly all have horticultural possibilities. It is
certain that some grape can be grown in every agricultural
recion in the United States: Whe ‘blueberry and huckleberry,
finest of fruits, and now the most valuable wild American
fruits, the crops bringing several million dollars annually, are
not yet domesticated. Coville has demonstrated that the blue-
berry can be cultivated. Some time we should have numerous
varieties of the several blueberries and huckleberries to enrich
pine plains, mountain tracts, swamps and waste lands that
otherwise are all but worthless. There are many varieties of
Juneberries widely distributed in the United States and Canada
from which several varieties are now cultivated. -The elder-
berry is represented by a dozen or more cultivated varieties,
one of which, brought to my attention the past season, pro-
duced a half hundred enormous clusters, a single cluster being
made up of 2,208 berries, each a third of an inch in diameter.
These are but a few of our fruits—others which can only
be named are: the anonas and their kin in Florida, the native
thornapples and crabapples, the wineberry, the buffalo berry,
several wild cherries, the cloudberry, prized in Labrador, the
crowberry of cold and Arctic America, the high bush cran-
berry, native mulberries, opuntias and other cacti of the deserts,
the pawpaw and persimmon and the well known and much used
salal and salmon berries of the West and North.
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 139
The groundnut (Apios tuberosa) furnished food for the
French at Port Royal in 1613 and the Pilgrims at Plymouth in
1620 and as a crop for forests might again be used. There are
a score or more species of Physalis or ground cherries native
to North America several of which are promising vegetables
and have been more or less used by pioneers. Solanum mgrum
the nightshade, a cosmopolite of America and Europe, recently
much advertised under several misleading names, and its con-
gener, Solanum trifloruim, both really wild tomatoes, are
worthy of cultivation and in fact are readily yielding to 1m-
provement. In China and Japan the corms or tubers of a
species of Sagittaria are commonly sold for food. There are
several American species one of which, at least, was used
wherever found by the Indians and under the name of arrow-
head, swan potato and swamp potato, have given welcome
sustenance to pioneers. Our native lotus, a species of Nelumbo,
was much prized by the aborigines, seeds, roots and stalks be-
ing eaten. Sagittaria and Nelumbo furnish starting points for
valuable food plants for countless acres of water-covered
marshes when the need to utilize these now waste places be-
comes pressing.—From an article by U. P. Hedrick in Science.
GATHERING GALAX FOR MARKET
URING the past decade a new plant for winter decorations
has appeared in our markets. This the galax (Galax
aphila) a plant whose round bronzy-green leaves are valued
for many uses by the florist. The following account of the way
these leaves are collected is taken from The Southern Field.
The gathering and marketing of the leaves of galax has
become an industry of considerable importance in the moun-
tains of Western North Carolina. The properties of the leaf
which cause it to be singularly adapted to florist’s uses are its
pleasing heart shape, beautiful color, deep green or bronze and
140 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
its durability. Exposed to the action of wind and sun galax
leaves retain their beauty for eight or ten days.
The leaves are gathered only during the fall, winter and
early spring. During the late spring and summer the leaves
are soft and succulent, hence perishable. For the rest of the
year they are tough, having a leathery feeling. The collecting
season is from October 1 to March 15.
During the fall and early winter the leaves are deep green
in color, later, due to the action of frost and sun, the color
changes to a deep bronze. The bronze leaves are the more
highly prized. Green leaves are available throughout the sea-
son as leaves which are densely shaded do not change in color.
The work of gathering the leaves is largely left to the
women and children. It 1s a common sight to see several
women and perhaps a dozen children starting early in the
morning for the galax beds.
The leaves are pulled, not cut. Where the entire petiole
is not taken it has been found that the leaves wilt in a few days.
As the leaves are pulled they are put loose into large cloth
sacks. Crushing them down and filling the sacks very full
does not hurt the leaves. Each night the leaves are carried
home. A good puller will gather ten to twelve thousand leaves
per day.
To be marketable the leaves must be assorted as to size
and color and neatly tied into bunches of twenty-seven leaves
each. Forty of these bunches count as one thousand leaves.
The reason twenty-seven leaves are put into each bunch is to
allow for culling. Only perfect leaves are salable. Should
there be any damaged leaves in a bunch they are pulled out by
the merchant who buys them. ‘Two leaves can be taken from
each bunch and still forty bunches will make the one thousand
leaves.
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 141
The leaves are green or bronze, and the smaller ones are
from two and one-half to three inches across, while the medium
are three to four inches and the large ones are more than four
inches.
The sorting and tying is done on stormy days and at night.
All fair weather is spent pulling the leaves. It requires nearly
as long to sort and tie up one thousand leaves as it does to
gather them.
For the leaves delivered at the store the pickers receive in
trade 25 cents per thousand. ‘The cash price is two cents per
thousand less.
As the leaves are brought to the storekeeper they are
packed in standard wooden cases of ten thousand leaves each.
Each case contains but one size and color of leaves. To pro-
tect the leaves against drying out in transit the cases are lined
with oiled paper and in the top and bottom of each is placed
dampened moss. -
The galax industry has a very beneficial effect along the
line of preventing forest fires in the localities where the leaves
are gathered. Where fire runs through a bed no leaves can
be gathered for several years. Thus, the people who pull the
galax are very careful with fire and are always ready to aid in
the extinguishing of fire that threatens their collecting grounds.
It has been some twelve years since there has been a serious
forest fire in the South Toe River Valley in Yancey county,
North Carolina, due very largely to the fact that many hundred
cases of galax are gathered there each year.
THE SEDGES
HE sedges (Family Cyperaceae), are grasslike plants but
easily distinguished from the true grasses by the follow-
ing characteristics: ‘The culms are solid, pithy, eylimdnieal
trigonous or flattened (Grass culms by contrast are mostly hol-
low, and cylindrical). The sheaths are not open lengthwise
opposite the leaf blade and tightly enclose the culm. The spikes
are simple or compound, and mostly subtended by leaflike
bracts which are sometimes longer than the culm. The spike-
lets are one to many flowered, each flower subtended and some-
times embraced by a single short, herbaceous or scarious bract
or scale, the most characteristic mark of-the family. The fruit
is an achene, trigonous, lenticular or plano-convex. In the
genus Carex only, it is enclosed in an herbaceous sac called the
perigynium.
Like grasses they grow in all kinds of soil from the wet-
test to the driest, in the densest shade and on the open prairie,
from the tropics to the limits of vegetation in latitude and alti-
tude. Many are especially hardy and flourish in the latitudes
where grasses are few and start in the spring when pastures
are still bare affording short feed for stock at a time when it
is most needed. On the average they are not as valuable for
hay and pasturage as the grasses, which is plainly shown by the
fact that man has never found one that seemed worthy of
cultivation, while the grasses constitute the most valuable
family of plants for the use of man in civilization.
Nevertheless the sedges form, in a stock raising state like
Nebraska, a not unimportant part of both hay and pasturage
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 143
and are eaten greedily not only from necessity at times but also
for the very desirable variety that is thus added to the rations
of our stock. In some swales and marshes where hay can be
cut in the drier years, they outbulk the grasses ten to one, and
the hay passes unquestioned in the market with no detriment to
either horses or cattle.
After studying the sedges for twenty-five years, I can say
that while they are undoubtedly as difficult as any of the flower-
ing plants there are none that give greater pleasure to the
earnest student of systematic botany, for it is the difficult things
in life that call out our resources and develop our powers. Yet
I observe that few college or university students have shown an
interest in them, and fear it is because the sedges bear a bad
reputation. I imagine also that this is partly because the col-
lector finds that he can do little with them in bloom beyond
settling the genus, and he does not always have the opportunity
to follow up the same set of plants into fruiting time and so
complete his work.
As I wish to increase the number of sedge students, es-
pecially among high school teachers, I venture to insert some
practical suggestions that will facilitate the work. Collect only
when in fairly mature fruit, one or two months after blooming.
If over-ripe, save achenes in packets labelled exactly as is the
plant. If scales are dropping, include them in good quantity
with the achenes. Use Gray’s seventh edition Manual because
it has the most scientific and practical keys that have so far been
given to American students. It is a delight to use them. Pro-
ceed slowly; exercise great patience with your own success for
a time. If you get a name from one whom you trust, go
through all the steps as 1f you knew nothing about the name
and prove him right or wrong as the case may be.—/. M.
Bates in “Sedges of Nebraska.”
A
NOTE and COMMENT
S| Sa
WuitTE HorsEMINT.—Several years ago, one rather wet
summer, while doing field work in botany, the writer came
upon a big bunch of the wild purple horsemint (Monarda
fistulosa) which was snow white. The leaves were just a shade
lighter green than other bunches growing about, but the blos-
soms were white as snow with not a hint of color showing
either in bud-or full grown blooms. The flowers were ex-
amined daily until all buds had bloomed and died without
showing color. The white mint did not appear the following
year and the question still remains, what did it?—Mrs. James
Edwin Morris, Arthur, Illinois. {This is undoubtedly a case
of albinism of which many exist in both plants and animals.
It is due to a lack of some factor which causes pigmentation.
It is rarely found in flowers whose colors depend upon definite
colored corpuscles in the cells but is not uncommon in those
colored by cell sap. Albino flowers seldom 1f ever revert to the
normal colored form, and usually their seeds produce albinos
like themselves.—Ed. |
PUFFBALLS FOR NOSEBLEED.—Mrs. J. D. Tuttle, Marl-
boro, N. H., notes that the ‘“‘smoke” from the puffball is useful
in stopping bleeding from the nose, being simply puffed into
the nose. The “smoke” of course, consists of myriads of puff-
ball spores and in all probability stops the flow of blood much
as other powdered substances might do. A physician to whom
the cure was mentioned said it was harmless, at least, but this
latter statement may be open to doubt. It is surmised that cer-
tain eye troubles may be caused by spores of the puffball get-
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 145
moe imto the eye. Thus the beliéf of the children that the
“smoke” from puffballs will make one blind may have some
basis in fact. If puffball spores will stop the flow of blood,
however, the fact is worth noting. We regret that certain war-
like Europeans were not thoroughly fumigated with puffball
smoke early last summer.
ABUNDANT MUSHROOM SporeEs.—lIt is reported that a
vigorous specimen of the field mushroom can produce ten
thousand million spores. - This number is so vast that it can
scarcely be appreciated, but the behavior of another species that
recently came under our observation helps to give an idea of the
immense number of spores produced. A student brought in
two specimens of the oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus )
growing on a water-soaked piece of wood. Neither specimen
was more than four inches across, but shortly after being placed
in a specimen case they began to shed spores and in a short
time had covered three shelves each three feet long and a foot
wide, with a coat of spores. Printed papers, lying on the
shelves, were so deeply covered that the print was invisible.
The precariousness of the mushroom’s hold on existence, how-
ever, may be realized when the abundance of its spores is con-
trasted with the number of plants that manage to grow. ‘The
conditions for getting started are so rigorous that probably not
one spore in hundreds of millions produces a plant that sur-
vives to maturity. The flowering plants with, at best, a few
dozens or hundreds of seeds, have arrived at a much better
solution of the problem of survival.
CERCIDOPHYLLUM LEAvEs.—The ordinary bud is essen-
tially an undeveloped stem with its appendages. In spring, this
bud throws off its bud-scales, if it has any, the embryo stem
lengthens and the leaves appear 1n their places. “Then, in most
of our plants, the stem rests whether cold weather has come
or not. New bud scales are formed about the tender tip, within
146 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
the protection of these scales a new set of embryo leaves de-
velop and soon a new bud is ready to endure the winter and
continue the stem another year. While this new bud is form-
ing, other new buds appear in the axils of the old leaves and
the following year produce side shoots or twigs with their ac-
companying leaves. As is well known, when one set of leaves
fall another set is never produced in their places. A twig has
leaves upon it only during the season in which it is formed.
According to Apgar’s “Ornamental Shrubs of the United
States,” however, a Japanese tree, Cercidophyllum Japonicum,
produces new leaves annually in place of the old leaves until the
twigs have reached a diameter of an inch or more. There seems
to be some mistake, here, however. Leaves always arise from
buds and we query whether it 1s not possible that the appear-
ance of a single leaf may be explained as arising from an
auxillary bud and thus only apparently arising from the old
leaf scar.
DISTRIBUTION OF Cacti.—It is the general impression
that all members of the cactus family are natives of America,
but C. K. Dodge, of Port Huron, Michigan, questions this
opinion. The eleventh edition of the “Encyclopedia Britan-
nica’ intimates that there are some species in tropical Mada-
gascar and the “Encyclopedia Americana” says that there is
one species in Ceylon which was known to the ancient Greeks
and Romans. The word cactus is found in the language of
both these peoples. Other cyclopedias mention cacti as natives
of the Old World and the “‘Tlustrated Flora” of Britton and
Brown speaks of the group as nearly all native of America. On
the other hand Wood's “‘Class Book of Botany” says all the
species are American and so does Kerner and Oliver’s “Natural
History of Plants.”* Ellsworth Huntington, who has for some
time been making a study of desert conditions in both Hemis-
pheres, says that there are no cacti in the Old World.. The
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 147
“Columbian Cyclopedia” says “the cacti are without exception,
natives of America.”’ In the face of such contradictory opinions
from what we are used to consider authorities, we hesitate to
decide. That there are cacti growing without cultivation in
various parts of the Old World is not questioned, but whether
these are native species or merely American species that have
become naturalized is the question. On the other side of the
world certain other species, notably the spurges, take on the
“appearance of cacti, but such forms would scarcely be mistaken
for cacti by scientific men. If any of our readers can settle this
question we would be glad if they would furnish the names of
such foreign species and data as to the country they inhabit.
ULTRA-VIOLET FLOWERS.—The rays of visible light, as
everybody knows, forms but a small fraction of the number
with which the physicist is familiar. The human eye perceives
only those rays which produce the color sensations which we
know as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, but
man has madé a sort of artificial eye—the photographic plate—
which has a much wider range and can perceive rays beyond
the red end of the spectrum as well as others beyond the violet
end. As may be supposed, there is a great difference in the ap-
pearance of objects photographed first by ordinary light and
then by ultra-violet light. If objects absorb the ultra-violet
rays, they come out dark on the photographic plate, while if
they have the power to reflect the rays, they come out nearly
white. Two Costa Rican experimenters have been examining
a great many different flowers in ultra-violet light with the
result that they have found about a dozen which reflect so much
of this light that they propose to name them ultra-violet
flowers. All corollas thus far found which have the power of
reflecting the ultra-violet rays are yellow, and among them are
the dandelion, pumpkin, cucumber, sow thistle and evening
primrose. The investigators whose notes appear in the Scien-
148 | THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
iific American are inclined to think that the reflection of ultra-
violet light has the same purpose as the reflection of visible
light, that is, the attraction of insects. It is well known that
ants can see in ultra-violet light and it is quite likely that other
insects have the same ability. While there is no difference that
the eye can note between flowers that reflect and those that ab-
sorb ultra-violet light, the experimenters found that when an
ultra-violet flower is placed in a beam of ultra-violet light, the
reflected rays when allowed to strike a sheet of white paper
moistened with acid quinine sulphate caused the alkaloid to
become highly luminous while other flowers make no impres-
sion upon it. In this connection it may be well to call attention
to a note in this magazine for November, 1913, in which a
number of flowers are mentioned which, to the eye, are clear
yellow, but which come out in two colors in a photograph.
Possibly the areas of different color may reflect the ultra-violet
light in different proportions.
FORMATION OF STARCH By PLANTS.—In elementary
botanical courses we are usually told that the plant forms
starch in the leaves by the union of carbon dioxide and
water in the presence of sunlight, but it appears that this
process is not quite so simple as this explanation might
lead one to think. According to a writer in Science, this is
what really happens: “During the formation of starch
through the agency of chloroplast or leucoplast we con-
ceive that there is instituted a predetermined, orderly in-
dependent and interdependent series of reactions the first —
of which is manifested in an interaction between water
and carbon dioxide through the agency of an enzyme in
the formation of an oxidase to form formaldehyde. Dur-
ing this process there is formed another enzyme which
tentatively may be designated as an aldehydase that re-
acts with the formaldehyde and by polymerization and con-
densation of six molecules gives rise to a simple sugar
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 149
Siem as dextrose. At the Same time, another enzyme
appears in the form of maltase which, reacting with the
dextrose, causes the formation of maltose during which
reaction another enzyme, a dextrinase is produced which
reacts with the maltose to yield dextrin. Going on with
this reaction another enzyme which may be designated
as amylase appears which reacting with the dextrin forms
Soluble Starch. During this stage, there arises another
enzyme a coagulase which converts the starch from the
soluble to the insoluble form of ordinary starch.” It is
fortunate for the young plants that they do not have to
understand all this before they can begin making starch
for themselves.
TAsTEe oF Poison Ivy.—Mrs. J. D. Tuttle, having inad-
verted tested poison ivy (Rhus toxicodendron), reports
that it has a flavor resembling that of black cherry. In
cases of poisoning from this plant, she recommends a tea
made from cleavers (Gali) to be used internally and as
a wash. Most mild cases of ivy poisoning will run their
course in a few days and leave no ill effects but in the case
of a few susceptible individuals a physician may even have
to be consulted.
CoNTINUOUS FLORAL SHOOTS.—That the flower is es-
sentially a transformed branch is frequently asserted by bot-
anists, and the flowers often prove it by producing leaves in-
stead of petals or carpels or even by originating a new bud in
the center of the flower which may in its turn produce a new
flower cluster. In an Australian group of shrubs, known as
bottle brushes (Callistemon), a variation of this phase is found.
Here the flower spike is terminal, but eventually the tip resumes
growth and becomes a leafy branch which may later produce
another crop of flowers at its tip, and this may be repeated sev-
eral times, forming a single branch beset with leaves, flowers
and fruits in successive zones,
150 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
THE Userut Burpocx.—Up to the present, few uses have
been found for the homely burdock except that of teach-
ing patience and perseverance to the agriculturist. The
roots of the plant still have some repute as an ingredient
in medicines intended to improve the blood but a more
rational course of living is rapidly making such invigor-
ators unnecessary. A new use of the fruit of this plant,
however has recently come to our attention. The burs,
glued to the back of small pasteboard emblems or ad-
vertisements serve admirably to attach them to the cioth-
ing. At country fairs, on tag days, in political campaigns,
etc., the omnipresent button may soon be replaced by
this new sort of a stickpin which requires only a touch
to attach and when once in place will stick to anybody
closer than a brother.
LINCOLN AND THE WHITE SNAKEROOT.—A trifle often
changes the destiny of individuals as well as nations. The
great State of Illinois takes considerable pride in the fact
that Lincoln was one of her “favorite sons,’ though, as a
matter of fact, he was born in Kentucky and did not mi-
grate to Illinois until he was nearly grown. This move,
if we may trust the historians, was largely due, though in
a roundabout way, to the white snakeroot (Eupatorium
ageratoides). Lincoln's mother Nancy Hanks Lincoln died of
milk-sickness and it was her death that caused Lincoln’s
father to remove to Illinois. Miulk-sickness is a disease
of cattle often known as the “trembles” which can be
communicated to human beings. Its occurrence in cattle
is due to their eating our familiar woodland plant, the
snakeroot. The plant is not always harmful, but like the
loco-weed, in some locatities it takes from the ground
certain substances that cause the disease. It would not
surprise us if some enthusiast should propose the white
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 151
snakeroot as the state flower of Illinois when its connection
with history is better known.
TREE DocrorinG For INsEcts.—In country districts, one
may still find tree doctors who go about from door to
door offering to cure sick trees by the use of iron and
sulphur. The iron is supplied by driving a handful of
nails into the trunk of the tree and the sulphur added by
porme a hole in the tree and putting in the sulphur in
powdered form. To those who still dose themselves with
sulphur and iron tonics, this treatment of the trees seems
twermost tational thing in the world, but the botanist
Secours time idea that it can be of any use whatever. A
writer in Science, however, advocates something similar
for preventing the attacks of insects. Having specimens
of Spanish broom that were badly infested with the cottony
cushion scale, he bored holes in the trunks and filled them
with crystals of cyanide of potassium, carefully plugging
up the openings. Ina very short time all the scale insects
dropped irom the trees, dead. Cyanide of potassium, it
may be said, is one of the deadliest poisons known and the
question then arose as to whether similar treatment of
trees with edible fruits would render the fruits harmful.
Accordingly peach and orange trees were tried without
apoamentill ettects. Av Surface, however, who is State
Zoologist of Pennsylvania, reports that the good effectg
of this treatment are only temporary and the bad effects
very permanent inasmuch as trees treated with cyanide
of potassium are ultimately killed by the treatment. He
cites scores of orchards that have been killed in this way.
‘The idea of “vaccinating” trees against the insects seems
Lo nave originated in Pennsylvania, but in spite of the
warnings of scientific men, the fakirs are making money
in the business.
152 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
SPECIES IN THE GENUS ASTER.—For some time botanists
of conservative tendencies have held the opinion that the aster
genus has been split into rather small fragments. Everything
that differed appreciably from named forms has had a binomial
or trinomial name attached to it. In view of this situation it
is refreshing to find a student of the asters confessing that there
does not seem to be any hard and fast lines for delimiting
species in this genus. In a paper on the asters of Wisconsin,
Charles E. Monroe writes: “The old notion of a species as
something definite, fixed and stable, nowhere breaks down more
completely than when an attempt is made to apply it to the dif-
ferent forms of Aster, as we find them in this country. Differ-
ent species are so connected by intermediate forms that we
often feel like ignoring specific distinctions and grouping two
or more species together under one name. On the other hand,
to one of a more analytical bent of mind the differences be-
tween members of a single species may appear so marked that
he will be under constant temptation to separate them into still
smaller subdivisions and to give to each specific rank. But
whichever course we follow, the different groups into which the
genus or species may be divided represents little more than par-
ticular tendencies or directions of variation and the members
of each make up a series illustrating the different stages. The
word “species” applied to our North American asters can
hardly be said to have any other significance than this. It
does not seem a valid objection that under such a definition a
single plant might be conceived as belonging to more than one
species. \Vhen we contemplate the splitting of species, we are
reminded of a once popular song which dwelt upon the re-
markable resemblance of all classes of coons. One does not
discover at first glance small differences in any group of plants
—they all look alike; but a closer acquaintance multiplies the
points of difference. The whole question then is, where do the
differences cease to be specific. Shall we have our plants sorted
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 15:
ey
out into fairly recognizable groups, or shall the divisions be as
fine as they are in the violets where it is facetiously said that to
name a violet one must not only know when and where it was
collected, but who collected it.
STEREOCHEMISTRY.—We are often at a loss to explain the
behavior of certain plants, but if the theories of those
scientists interested in stereochemistry are correct some
at least may be explained by the molecular structure of
miei pants. Only three or four chemical elements are
found in the majority of plant substances. For instance,
such widely differing substances as starch and sugar,
vinegar and alcohol, wood and oil, mucilage and wax, are
composed of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen in varying
Mounts still more remarkable, it is known that the
sugars, though made of exactly the same amounts of these
Slemenrssare very different in their effects and in their
reactions with other substances. These differences are
now believed to be due, not to different amounts of the
elements composing them, but to the different way in
which these elements may be arranged in the molecule.
Miescher has estimated that the serum globule molecule
may exist in a thousand million forms. Of the twelve
known forms of glucose, only dextro forms (that is, those
which rotate a beam of polarized light to the right) are
fermentable or capable of being used by certain low or-
ganisms for food. In other substances the dextro forms
may be untouched and other forms used. It thus appears
that the structure of the molecule is of immense im-
portance in the reaction of the organism or its parts and
this may explain why one substance is poisonous when
another exactly like it in composition is not, or why a
substance may poison one organism and not another
closely allied to it: By this theory may be explained the
154 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST .
reason why the pollen grains of one plant will not ger-
minate on the stigma of a related flower and why other
plants more distantly related can be crossed with it. It
depends largely upon the structure of the molecules of
their protoplasm. Stereochemistry opens an inviting field
for speculation and its further advances will doubtless be
fertile in results.
Fruits With A FEver.—Plants are so different from
animals that we sometimes fail to realize that they are not
only alive but that their tissues function like animal tissues at
least so far as the fundamental life processes go. Plants
respire, digest, assimilate, excrete, perspire and perform many
other acts which are regarded as chiefly characteristic of ani-
mals. Plants may even get a fever when injured. When a
potato tuber is cut, its temperature immediately begins to rise.
When animals exercise they become warm and so do plants,
for the liberation of energy is always accompanied by heat.
In the case of ripening bananas it has been found that one
calorie of heat per kilogram per hour is liberated. In this case
the starch is being turned to sugar, exactly as in digestion in
animals.
EUCALYPTUS vs. SEQUOIA.—The general impression
seems to be that the blue gums (Eucalyptus) of Australia are
the tallest trees in the world but that the redwoods (Sequoia)
of California have the greatest girth. This impression, how-
ever, seems to need revision. According to a note in Scientific
American by F. W. Goding, U. S. Consul General at Guaya-
quil, Equador, the tallest specimen of Eucalyptus thus far
measured was 220 feet high, while Dr. Sargent records a
specimen of the California big tree 340 feet in height. If these
measurements are correct, the American trees are more than a
hundred feet taller than the best specimens of Eucalyptus thus
far discovered and this record leaves our own big trees with
sucha lead that it is probable that our claim to having not only
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 155
the trees of greatest girth but also the tallest specimens in the
world cannot successfully be refuted.
Potsonous NeEttLes.—In our youthful days a moral used
to be drawn from the story of two boys who picked some
nettles. The first individual siezed the nettles boldly and
received no harm but the second grasped them with some
hesitation and of course was stung. The moral that fil-
tered into our childish’ intellect was “Put up a bold front
or be stung,” and while this was probably not exactly
the lesson intended, we have since been pained to observe
that it is still a favorite precept with a good many people.
When it comes to nettles, however, there are some that
had better not be grasped, boldly or otherwise. Certain
of the tropical species are so poisonous as to be capable
of killing a man if he comes in contact with any con-
siderable number of the stinging hairs. In a case recently
related by a Panama scientist, who came in contact with
about ten of the stinging hairs of Jatropha urens, he was
so nearly overcome that he remained unconscious for more
than an hour. The attack produced much swelling of the
arms and other parts of the body, accompanied with in-
tense itching, the respiration was difficult and vomiting
occurred. The amount of poison that caused these symp-
toms is estimated as five hundred thousandths of a cubic
centimeter. The stinging hairs of even our native species
are admirably adapted to their work and are not unlike
a hypodermic syringe, the tip of the hair being silicious
or glassy, with a hollow running down to a bulb below
in which the poison is contained. When a careless touch
knocks off the tip of the hair, a sharp hollow needle is
left through which the poison is ejected into the wound.
The poison is similar to that which the bee uses so suc-
cessfully in defense, but 1s much stronger.
OWN.
EDITORIAL
SS NU
At the close of another volume, we take the opportunity
to say a few words regarding the volume to follow. In its
superficial aspects it will be much like those that have preceded
it but if our subscribers and contributors do their best it will
much excel any that have gone before. If they show a dispo-
sition to “let George do it” they will probably get a surfeit of
articles from the editorial pen. We may add, by way otf
parenthesis, that the editor is a pretty busy individual who
issues the magazine because he likes to see it go and therefore
while it may come out irregularly it will appear in due time,
which is the main consideration. An abundant supply of arti-
cles and notes would conduce to greater regularity in its ap-
pearance, however. At this time we may also point out that
the magazine costs only 75 cents a year if one subscribes for
two years in advance and asks to be put on our “permanent”’
list. Possibly half of our subscription list is of this permanent
character. Those on the list regard themselves somewhat as
backers of a deserving enterprise and expect to be considered
as subscribers until they notify us to stop sending the maga-
zine. Such subscribers renew annually when the spirit moves
them. There is room on the list for a few more names. As
the country weeklies put it “Now is the time to subscribe.”
4
‘
At this season when many renewals of subscription are
due, we beg our friends not to send us checks on out-of-the-
way banks. It often costs us 25 cents to collect a check for 75
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 157
cents and this is a reduction that we are not willing to stand.
Money orders or stamps usually reach us safely and any bank
will sell a draft on New York or Chicago which is absolutely
safe. Checks on the banks of large cities except those of the
far west are also acceptable, but a check for 75 cents on a
bank in an opening in the tall timber causes us to lose interest
in existence.
No matter how hard the scientist tries to disseminate ac-
curate information, he finds some irresponsible just ahead of
him with a story of plants or animals so wonderful that a
public, educated via the moving picture route, much prefers it
to any sober statement of fact. It is easy for the reporter on
the hunt for a “human interest” story to contort the facts until
they have little semblance to the truth in his efforts to enter-
tain the public. The advertiser of a set of natural history books
that are at present being introduced to the public asks in one
of his circulars, “Do you know that the dew plant kills and eats
every fly that alights on its petals by ensnaring with a sticky
substance?’ We confess that this is news to us. We have seen
the sun-dew but never one that caught flies with its petals. In
another place this same individual informs us that his books
will tell us why an ant’s head may often be seen walking by
itself without a body. Since the ant’s legs are attached to its
thorax and not to its head we hope we may never encounter
this remarkable sight. We know of several people who would
never seek for the explanation of such a phenomenon in a
book. It would be the Keeley Cure for theirs. Much as we
value knowledge, we incline to agree with Josh Billings that
“Tt is a good deal better to know less, than to know so much
that ain t so.”
BOOKS AND WRITERS
“A Textbook of Grasses” is the title of a new book by A.
S. Hitchcock, Agrostologist of the United States Department
of Agriculture, in which the author has endeavored to include
everything of value on the subject of our wild and cultivated
forage crops. One will look in vain for a systematic descrip-
tion of grasses in this book. Only those are mentioned which
possess some degree of usefulness as food for man or stock.
The book, however, is much more than a discussion of grasses
as botanical species. There are chapters devoted to pastures,
meadows, lawns, hay, weeds, ornamental grasses and grasses
for purposes other than food. The morphology of the vegeta-
tive and floral organs is discussed in two chapters, while
ecology, taxonomy and classification have chapters alloted to
each. The various grass genera are systematically treated and
keys to the important species given. The book is of impor-
tance for containing a large amount of matter relating to
grasses that is usually missing from such books. The volume
covers 260 pages with upwards of sixty illustrations. It is
published by the Macmillan Company, New York, at $1.50
met.
The mechanism of the ascent of sap in stems has never
received an adequate explanation. The force necessary to
raise the sap to the tops of high trees is considerable, often
amounting fla pressure equal to twenty atmospheres, and
such plant processes as have heretofore been brought forward
to account for it have had to be dismissed, one after another,
as unequal to the task. In these investigations, capillarity,
osmosis, evaporation, root pressure, vital activity in the cells,
and many others have been tried and found wanting. An Irish
botanist, however, Dr. Henry H. Dixon, of Trinity College,
Dublin, seems to have solved the problem. He finds that water
has a surprising cohesive power when enclosed in the ducts of
Db AVE RIC ANS BOLANIST 159
plants, and the cohesion of sap is still greater, often amounting
to a pressure of 200 atmospheres. In the stems of plants, then,
the water and sap are in practically solid columns extending
from the leaves down to the roots. When, therefore, water is
abstracted from the cells of the leaves by evaporation or other
processes of the plant, the pull exerted is transmitted down-
ward to the roots and more water is taken in. A book by Dr.
Dixon in which the subject is discussed at length with much
experimental proof has just appeared from the press of The
Macmillan Co. It is entitled ‘“Transpiration and the Ascent of
Sap in Plants.” It is undoubtedly one of the most important
contributions to physiological botany that has appeared for
some time and seems to have cleared up a problem which has
long perplexed plant students. The price of the book is $1.40
net.
ines Studies o: Vrees, J. |. Levison, who is Forester to
the Department of Parks, Brooklyn, N. Y., has given us still
another kind of tree book. Most of those with which we are
familiar aim solely at identification. The present book goes
farther and discusses the best trees for lawns, streets and wood-
lands and how to plant them, the important insect and fungus
pests with means for their eradication, pruning and tree repair,
forestry, and the uses of wood. ‘The first half of the book is
taken up with a description of our common trees under such
heads as distinguishing characteristics, form, size, range, soil,
enemies, commercial value, common names, and comparison
with other trees. All the information given is useful, but the
lack of a key to the trees themselves must render this largely
a sealed book to the beginner, at least as far as identifying the
trees is concerned. Those who know the trees will find much
in the book of interest. There are 150 illustrations of specimen
trees, examples of bark and wood and of the insect enemies
of the trees. The book is issued by John Wiley and Sons, New
York, and costs $1.00.
160 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST
Dr. Jacadis Chunder Bose, professor in the Presidency Col-
lege, Calcutta, but at present delivering a course of lectures in
the United States, has written a remarkable volume on the
“Irritability of Plants” in which he details his experiments in
studying the phenomena of plant movements. The nature of
the subject makes the difficulties of experimentation all but
insurmountable, but with a great variety of ingeniously con-
structed apparatus of original design he compelled various
“sensitive plants,’ foremost of which was the well known
Mimosa pudica, to register their responses to a large number
of stimuli including light and darkness, heat, electricity, me-
chanical shock, fatigue, chemicals, etc. The text of the book,
which covers 360 octavo pages, is illustrated by nearly 200
diagrams and drawings showing the machines used and the
results obtained. Although Dr. Bose worked with plants whose
movements are sufficiently noticeable to entitle them to the
name of “sensitive plants,’ he asserts that not only are all
plants sensitive but all plant organs as well. Ordinary plants
do not appear sensitive simply because their reactions are less
conspicuous. The rhythmic movements of the plant tissues
were found to be remarkably hke the rhythmic movements in
the tissues of animals. As one reads this book he is at a loss
which to admire more, the ingenuity with which the various
tests were devised or the patience and care with which they
were carried out. The book cannot fail to be of much interest
to all students of plant physiology. It is issued by Longmans,
Green & Co., London and New York, at $2.50 net.
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Volume XIX
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AMERICAN BOTANIST
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60 pages, several illustrations. 54cents postpaid.
LABORATORY BOTANY FOR THE HIGH SCHOOL
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