Full text of "The American botanist : a monthly journal for the plant lover"

The American Botanist

DEVOTED TO ECONOMIC
AND ECOLOGICAL BOTANY

EDITED BY WILLARD N. CLUTE

LWRARV
NEW YORK
fiOTAMCAL

Volume XVI

JOUET. ILUNOIS

WILLARD N. CLUTE & COMPANY

1910

g— TN CONTENTS /7 — D

CONTRIBUTED ARTICLES.

Aggressiveness of Plants, The Willard N. Clute, 39

Eccentricities of Distribution Dr. W. W. Bailey, 100

Flowering Raspberry, The Dr. W. W. Bailey 37

History and Future of Forestry in the United States . .

Mary F. Haggerty, 70, 103

Key to the Apetalous Dicotyledons 120

Key to the Monocotyledons 26

Key to the Polypetalous Dicotyledons 88

Key to the Sympetalous Dicotyledons 54

Parnassia Dr. W. W. Bailey, 69

Plant Hairs and Scales Mary McGowan, 4

Plants of the Sand-barrens, The. . . .Willard N. Clute, 33

Some Rare Vermont Plants Lester A. Wheeler, 65

Some Spring Wildflowers of Alberta . .W. M. Buswell, 1

Some Trees of the California Deserts . . C. F. Saunders, 97

Teaching Systematic Botany Willard N. Clute, 50

Three Examples of Retarded Development Among

Leaves Edivin W. Humphreys, 6

Local Names of Flowers Mrs. Flora Swetnam, 8

REPRINTED ARTICLES.

Centenary of a Botanist 41

Studying Buds 21

School Botany , 21, 50, 85, 117

Editorial 28, 56, 92, 122

Books and Writers. 31, 57, 93, 124

NOTE AND COMMENT.

Agriculure, Teaching 25

Air Plant, Japanese 8*

Arbutus, Fragrant 55

Arctic Flora, The 4^

Bacteria in the Soil ......113

Berries, Birds and 82

Botany, Practical ,. 8P

Botany, Teaching 53

Botany, The Use of 109

Cabbage, Jingoism and the

Price of 14

Caltrop, The, in Illinois 80

Chemicals Excreted by Plants.. 8.5
Color of Turtle-head Flowers. 15

Dame's Violet 76

Dandelions, Getting Rid of.... 11.5

Diatoms, Speed of *„... 20

Dicots, Monocots and. . ...•^. . . . 24

Dodder, Increase of *,..., 115

Double Sunflowers 8J

Eucalyptus, Growth of...*^.>.. 10

Flora, The Arctic ., 44

Fragrant Arbutus * 55

Fungi, Cultivation of.......... 96

Fungi, Named Free , 7P

Fungi, Spores of , .... 43

Galls on Peppermint 109

Giant Cactus, Growth Rate of.. 119
Grindelia Squarrosa in New

York 110

Growth Rings 19

Impatiens Pallida Alba 11

Kalmia, Forms of 49

Legumes 83

Material for Study .., 118

Monocots and Dicots 24

Monocot, Use of the Word... 2?
Mucor, Growing 119

Name-tinker, Ups and Downs

of the 17

Nature's Planting 47

Nelumbo Stamen, Abnormal.. 80
Orris Root 4?

Parasitic Plants 79

Peppermint, ^Galls on 109

Peanut, Fruiting of 15

Phlox, A Changeable 84

Pine Seeds as Food 19

Pine Seeds, Vitality of 48

Plant Hairs and Nitrogen 48

Planting, Nature's 47

Plant Lore, Ancient 17

Plant Names, Early 113

Plant Products, The Year's 13

Plants, Aggressive 46

Plants in the School Garden... 118

Plants, Parasitic 79

Plants, Rare, In Cities 12

Plants, Rare Iowa 114

Plant Species, Number of 112

Postage on Specimens 14

Root Hairs 77

School Garden, Plants in 118

Science to Fit the Facts Ill

Science, The Need of 53

Seeds, Contents of 83

Seeds, Germination of

So-1, Fertility of the 78

Spores of Fungi 43

Stamen, Abnormal Nelumbo... SO

Storing Facts 86

Sub-species, New Conception

of a 45

Sunflowers. Double 81

Teaching, Successful 117

Text-books, High School 87

Trees of America and Japan... 16

Trifolium procumbens 14

Tropical Forest, Density of.... 43
Turtle-head Flowers, Color of 15

Varieties Ill

Weed Immigrants 116

Wildflowers, Our Unsubdued. .112

Wistaria, Flowering of 77

Wonderberry Poisonous 18

Woods, Philippine 11

VOLUME «6, NUMBER I WHOLE NUMBER 84

FEBRUARY, J 9 10

The AMERICAN
BOTANIST

CONTENTS

SOME SPRING WILDFLOWERS OF

CENTS

ALBERTA 1

By W. M. Buswell.

PLANT HAIRS AND SCALES - - 4

By Mary McGowan.

COPY

75
CENTS

THREE EXAMPLES OF RETARDED
DEVELOPMENT AMONG LEAVES 6

"^y Edwin W. Humphreys.

LOCAL NAMES OF FLOWERS - - 8

By Mrs. Flora Swetnam.

NOTE AND COMMENT - - - 11

YEAR

SCHOOL BOTANY ... - 21
EDITORIAL - - - - - 28
BOOKS AND WRITERS . - - 31

WILLARD N. CLU IH & CO.

JOTJF.T, ILLINOIS

"Bhe Americarv Botanist

A QUARTERLY DEVOTED TO ECOLOGICAL AND ECONOMIC BOTANY

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PLANT HAIRS AND SCALES.

The American Botanist

VOL. XV! JOLIET, ILL., FEBRUARY, 1910 No. 1

\!>oon o' en t/iein heads blithe >^ipnil airs shall sing,

-/i thousand ivildfloivens round them shall unfo 'd,

^he green buds glisten in the deujs of spring,

-^ind be all vernal rapture as of old.

— Keble.

LIBRARY
NEW YORK
BOTANICAL

GARDEN.

SOME SPRING WILDFLOWERS OF ALBERTA.

By W. M. Buswell.

NEAR the big" bend of Battle River one of the first flowers
to appear it the little pasque-flower. If the Spring is
early the first ones are seen early in April but perhaps the
next year they will not be seen before the first of May. For
several days before the first flowers appear, little balls of gray
fur may be seen all over the prairie where the pasque-flowers
are starting from the ground. These are soon followed by
the pretty bell-shaped bluish, lavender or sometimes pink
flowers. They are 3 to 5 inches high, the involucre and stem
covered with grayish hairs. As they grow older the flowers
grow upward on pedicels nearly as long as the main stem
leaving the hairy involucre where it was when the flower first
opened. In about a week or 10 days after the first flower ap-
pears the prairie is covered with them and the much divided
leaves are beginning to appear on the earliest ones. When
they are in full bloom the prairie looks like a large flower
garden. Later when in fruit the long feathery tails on the
fruit colors the prairie a nearly uniform gray. They are
generally called crocus flowers by the people here and I be-
lieve the name crocus amemone has been suggested for them

2 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

thus combining the botanical name with the name by which
they are commonly known.

A few days later the next common flowers appear — two
members of the parsley family Peucedaniim villosiim and P.
nudicaule — they do not appear to have a common name. P.
villosuni is much more common than the other, growing in
nearly all bare spots in what is called gumbo soil where very
few other plants will grow. The umbel of yellow flowers on
stems 3 to 8 inches high from the root resembles the flowers of
the early meadow parsnip. There are two or three finely
dissected leaves from the root usually spreading out or lying
flat on the ground so that the flowering stem stands up above
the leaves. P. nudicaule is usually found growing in thick
grass along the river, the flowers are white and the leaves
much thinner.

Phlox Hoodii is another common plant in bloom about this
time. These are small, stiff, pale green plants, like a spruce
twig, two or four inches high, with numerous small, white,
five-petalled flowers. Sometimes there are so many flowers
on a plant that they form a thick mat three or four inches in
diameter when they are quite showy.

The two species of buffalo-berry are in bloom now, but
the flowers are not conspicuous, being in small close clusters
around the stem, the staminate and pistilate on different
plants. On the Canadian buffalo-berry the leaves are the
most showy part of the plant at this time, the two rusty-
backed leaves at the end of each twig lightly folded together,
look like rusty spear-heads sticking out in all directions.

Following these, all damp rich spots on the prairie and
along the sides of coulees, begin to grow yellow with large
patches of the prairie thermopsis {T. rJioinhifolia) resembling
patches of dandelions in bloom as we see them in the East.
They are one of the most showy flowers we have here, the
plants growing from 4 to 5 inches to a foot high with tri-

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 3

foliate leaves and racemes of large deep yellow pea blossoms
at the end of the leafy stems.

The yellow oxy trope O. campestris is in bloom at the
same time, also growing in large patches but much different
in appearance, the leaves are pinnate, with about 17 pale green
leaflets, the pale yellow flowers are smaller than those of
Thermopsis and in a more compact head on naked stems, but
as there are often from 10 to 30 flower stalks on a plant
standing up above the leaves they are very showy. The oxy-
trope seems to prefer dry stony or sandy banks where the
grass is thin, so the two are not often found growing to-
gether.

In early May the first woodland flowers begin to open
and something new is seen nearly every day. We have several
different violets here, some of them new to me. The Canada
violet was not a new one, but I had never seen them growing
as large and in such numbers before. Nearly every coulee has
one or both sides covered with a growth of poplar, balm and
white birch trees with an undergrowth of shrubs of different
kinds and the ground is carpeted with Canada violets in bloom
until cold weather in the Fall. Nuttalls violet is the only
yellow species I have found here, usually growing on banks
along the valley.

From the time the first pasque-flower opens in the spring
until late in the fall there are flowers everywhere, in the small
groves of poplar and willow on the prairie and along the river
as well as all over the prairie, but there are very few sweet
scented flowers at any time. Of the early flowers the sweet
coltsfoot is about the only sweet scented species.

Through the winter when the trees and shrubs are leaf-
less and most flowering plants are dead or merely dry stalks,
about the only green to be seen is a large patch of bearberry
here and there along the high banks near the river or on the
banks of a coulee, nearly always near the top. About the

4 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

middle of May they are covered with Httle bunches of bottle-
shaped flowers which look like small white lamp chimneys
with the turned back tops a deep rosy red. These are followed
by large red berries, more ornamental than useful, as they are
filled with large seeds and are rather dry when ripe.

I think there are fewer species of early flowers here than
in the East but through June, July and August there are more
flowers than I have ever seen in any one place in the East,
many of them very attractive, especially those of the pulse
family and some of the composites.

PLANT HAIRS AND SCALES.

By Mary McGowan.

TV yiOST people have doubtless noticed the hairy or downy
^^ ^ coating on the leaves, and stems of various plants, but
few have stopped to consider their structure, or realized that
many are not mere simple hairs as we would naturally sup-
pose, but may be foked, branched, many celled, and even with
the cells arranged in rosettes to form scales.

It is a noticeable fact that plants having such structures
aie generally found growing in sunny places. The advantage
of the hairs in this case would be to retard evaporation by
shading the leaves from the sun. In most cases the hairs also
seem designed to protect the stomata or breathing pores
from being clogged by rain or dew, and still another advant-
age is that they protect the plant from sudden changes of tem-
perature.

The epidermal hairs are also of use, in another way.
Animals seeing the hairy surface of a plant wmII turn away
from it, if they have tried to eat it before and if not they fail
to eat very much on account of the prickly sensation produced
on their tongues by the hairs. The branched hairs of the
Mullein are especially useful to the plant, as it flourishes

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 5

everywhere along roadsides, in pastures, and in the woods and
other waste grounds, where it i^. exposed to injury on all sides.
Some of the most interesting of epidermal structures are
the scales of such plants as Shepherdia and Dcutcia. In those
of Shepherdia (fig. a.) the several cells are arranged
in a rosette while in Deutzia they are star like and
have a toothed edge. Some are five parted, and others
eight parted, with rounded points scattered through-
out. The geranium has two different forms of hairs,
namely the simple (fig. e), and glandular (fig. c). These are
not confined to any special part of the leaf. They are inter-
mixed. The simple are one celled hairs, with very sharp tips.
The others are many celled, and have a globular cell at the tip
which is glandular. This cell gives out a fragrant oil that is
so familiar to us, when the plant is bruised. The hairs of
the mullein are rather more complex than any I have men-
tioned because they are not continuous in one direction, but
each small hair seems to be jointed to a large central hair, the
smaller hairs, six in number, joining the central hair at regu-
lar intervals, and forming a circule around it. The tip of the
hair is globular in shape, and has one celled hairs projecting
from all sides. In the Dame's violet (fig. h) the hairs are
forked instead of single, forming two sharp points. This
saves space, and does twice the work of the simple continu-
ous hair. The epidermal hairs of the Hollyhock are very
symmetrical in shape having five regular parts, radiating from
the center, and a sheathlike cell at the base binding them to-
gether. The stamen hairs of Tradescantia are the most pe-
culiar of all hairs previously mentioned. They are large oval
cells joined together forming a hair, and those near the tip
are rounded, the whole structure resembling a beaded neck-
lace.

Joliet, Illinois.

THREE EXAMPLES OF RETARDED DEVELOP-
MENT AMONG LEAVES.

By Edwin W. Humphreys.

VARIATION in leaf form is an exceedingly interesting
field for study. Even a cursory examination of a plant
will often reveal some remarkably shaped leaves. Besides
what may be called normal or expected differences in shape,

as in the case of the sassafras, mulberry and others, there are
often to be found strange and unusual forms. It is to some
of these peculiar forms that attention is here directed.

The most remarkable of the three examples occurred on
the common garden morning-glory. While removing some
dead and withered leaves from certain plants in my garden,
the leaf illustrated (fig. 1) was found. To one familiar with
the seedling morning-glory of this variety the cotyledons are
irresistibly called to mind. The figure ( fig 2 ) shows the shape
and nervation of the cotyledon, so that the reader may com-
pare it with the later, unusual leaf and note their essential
similarity. It is because of this similarity that the large leaf
is looked upon as a retarded or atavistic form ; one which,

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

Fig 2.

though mature and appearing at a later period of growth of
the plant, has not developed i)eyond the stage represented by
the cotyledon. On the other hand, its great difference from

the normal leaf of this variety of
morning-glory may be seen by compar-
ing it with figure 3.

In this case a single leaf only was
involved, though several similar leaves
were afterwards found on different
plants. Sometimes, however, all the
leaves of a given tree or plant are thus
retarded As is well known, the first
leaves put forth by the seedling sassa-
fras are the simple, non-lobed forms,
the lobed forms appearing later. This
is also true of the individual branches,
on each of which the lower leaves are simple, while those of
the median portion, and some-
times those of the upper portion
also are lobed, though frequently
the uppermost zone of leaves is
simple. It therefore appears
reasonable to consider such simple
leaves as may be found occupying
the median portion of the branch
as retarded forms. A splendid
example of this kind of retarda-
tion is a sassafras tree growing
in Bronx Park, New York City.
It is between ten and fifteen
feet high and for two seasons has been practically covered
with simple leaves. Last season less than half a dozen lobed
forms could be seen, while the season before none were found.

8 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

Here, then, is a case in which the retardation was throughout
the entire tree and not confined to a few leaves. Similar trees,
I believe have been seen elsewhere. The surrounding trees
appeared to have the normal arrangement and number, of
course in a general way, of lobed and non-lobed leaves.

The third case is similar to the preceding, in that all the
leaves on the tree were affected. In this instance the tree was
a young tulip tree, about fifteen feet high, growing on a rocky
hillside in the upper part of the Hemlock Grove, Bronx Park,
New York City. The leaves were larger than the average
Liriodendron leaf, but were, without exception, much simpler
in outline, possessing none of the characteristic lobing. These,
too, though comparatively longer, reminded one of the
cotyledons.

As to the cause of these retardations I can say nothing,
though in the tulip-tree it may have been the poor soil, but
this reason could not be urged for the other cases. Whatever
the causes they probably affected the leaf in its embryonic
condition.

New York City.

LOCAL NAMES OF FLOWERS.

By Mrs. Flora Swetnam.

SOMETIMES when one takes up the study of botany af-
ter arriving at a mature age, one is often surprised and
delis-hted to find under a new name the old friends of child-
hood. The thing that confuses us and causes us to fail to
recognize them when we read one of the common names in
some story or magazine is, that many of them have several
common names, a different on? for each locality, and it is only
when we run them to earth in a text book that we exclaim:
"Why I know that ! it's a very old friend ; grandmother called
it so and so."

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 9

I had never known arbutus by any other name than
"rough-leaf" till I was quite grown up. Then a friend sent
me a box of it under its proper name and my eyes were
opened. But I found one great difference in that growing in
New York State, and that found south of the Ohio. The
arbutus growing south is not fragrant. Another common
flower, called in different localities, dog-tooth violet, adder's
tongue and lamb's tongue, I found to be often white north of
the Ohio, while in Kentucky I have never found a white
specimen. There was no difference in other respects.

I have never been able to find either skunk's cabbage or
cat-tails in Kentucky, though it is possible I have not looked
in the right places.

I had often read in stories about checkerberries, partridge-
berries, boxberries and teaberries without having the slightest
inkling that it was our old friend wintergreen often called
"mountain tea" in the mountains of Kentucky. The wild ger-
anium I only knew as "wild alum" so called, probably, on ac-
count of the astringency of its roots. And I had read so often
when a little girl about the wind flower, and puzzled my brains
till I found out later that I had gathered quantities of them as
anemones.

The Prince's pine I should never have recognized to be
another old friend, the pipsissewa, often called "rat's bane"
among the Kentucky people. Neither could I recognize in the
name jewel weed, the wild touch-me-not I had gathered in
childhood. Another puzzle vvas toad flax. If any one had
asked me if I knew that plant, I should unhesitatingly have re-
plied no, until I found another of its common names was but-
ter and eggs, and to hear that old time friend, milk weed,
called silk grass was more bewildering still.

We have in the mountains of Kentucky, the spring
beauty, the yellow and purple wood sorrel, wake-robin, butter-
cup, evening primrose, crowfoot and the blood root honored

10 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

by some old people with a name I cannot spell. I think that
magazine writer who was lamenting that our beautiful wild
flowers are slowly disappearing, would find most of them
represented in the hills of Kentucky. -
West Liberty, Ky.

Growth of Eucalyptus. — In the December number of
The American Botanist there appeared an interesting note on
the growth of trees in which \/as given the time required for
various species to reach a diameter of twelve inches. I would
like to add to this list, for comparison, Eucalyptus globulus,
which has been so extensively planted in California during
recent years as to entirely change the aspect of the country.
Investigations carried on by the state forester show that under
favorable conditions this tree will reach the diameter of one
foot in 10 years, while it takes the catalpa 20, the walnut 56,
and the white oak 100 years to reach this size. At this ago
the eucalyptus will be about 125 feet high and growing at the
rate of 15 feet yearly. In the height of the growing season
seedlings have frequently been observed to make an average
height growth of six inches a day. The most rapid seedling
growth noted was made by a tree which in nine years reached
a height of 125 feet and a diameter of 36 inches. The E.
globulus is the most rapid growing among the eucalypts, and
is without doubt the fastest growing hardwood tree in the
world. For this reason it has been more widely planted in
California than all other species combined, although at the
present time large plantations of E. rostrata and E. tereti-
cornis are being made as they furnish timber preferable to
globulus for many purposes. Their rate of growth is also
very rapid, under favorable circumstances being but slightly
less than that of globulus. — IV. Scott Lewis, Los Angeles,
Calif.

NOTE AND COMMENT

Wanted. — Short notes of interest to the general botanist
are always in demand for this department. Our readers are
invited to make this the place of publication for their shorter
botanical items. The magazine is issued as soon as possible
after the 15th of February, May, August and November.

Impatiens Pallida Alba. — I have neglected to report
the finding of this variety in this section, but the item regard-
ing it in the August Botanist brought it to mind. For several
years I have been finding what I take to be the same variety
of the yellow touch-me-not that was reported from Pennsyl-
vania some five or six years ago, by C. H. Woodward. I
have found it at two stations in this country, one in the north-
east corner of this township, ?nd the other near Chesterland.
Caves. — Orange Cook, Chardon, Ohio.

Philippine Woods. — The newcomer in the Orient is
usually surprised at finding that soft woods are not uncommon
and that a large part of the timber of the region is of medium
or light weight. The popular notion of eastern timbers seems
to be that they are mainly hard and heavy, ornamental, fur-
niture or cabinet woods. This notion is probably due to the
fact that until recent years the only eastern woods which have
reached the European markets have been a few of the more
valuable ones for furniture and cabinet work; as ebony, rose-
wood, satinwood, etc. Most European and American works
which mention eastern woods at all, consider only examples
like satinwood, rosewood or teak and give little or no account
of the wood of the great family Dipterocarpaceae which fur-

12 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

nishes much the largest part of the timber of this part of the
world. This is as unreasonable as it would be to take a few
of the furniture woods of North America, as black walnut
{Juglans nigra) or the wild black cherry {Prunus serotinus)
as representatives of the woods of the country. In the eastern
tropics the woods of the family Dipterocarpaceae are to the
trade what the pines, spruces, firs, hemlocks, oaks and beeches
are to the trade of temperate North America and Europe.
This family, while it supplies many valuable hardwoods, sup-
plies also the most widely used soft and medium grade woods
of the eastern tropics. So wide is its distribution and so gen-
eral the use of its wood that I believe that all the other woods
could be spared from many eastern markets without seriously
hampering work or affecting prices. — Philippine Journal of
Science.

Rare Plants in Cities. — There seems to be a very pre-
vailing idea that in order to find plants worthy of notice, one
must go "to the heart of Nature" or to some other equally in-
definite region. It has become customary to neglect the
plants near at home as mere weeds and hence insignificant. As
a matter of fact, these sturdy intruders, unwelcome though
they may be, offer most interesting studies as to mode of life
and as to dispersal of seed. We should not be so ready to
sneer at the "weed" — it is a living example of the great law
of survival, living on and accomplishing its continuance in an
environment where other plants would have failed. From a
"plants-eye view" it is a vigorous, virile and successful indi-
vidual. The adaptations of root, stem or fruit that thus en-
able the plant to survive in face of most vigorous warfare are
worthy of more detailed study than is usually given. From
another point of view — it is surprising to note what plants
may be found where we would least expect them. There is
interesting field for "botanizing" even in the heart of Chi-

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 13

cago. During a visit there last summer, I found on vacant
land adjoining one of the great parks, Cladium mariscoides,
Carex Miihlenhergii, Potentilla argentea, and numerous other
species which one would hardly expect to find in the heart of
a great city. Down nearer the business centre, on made
ground along the lake front I found the rather rare Heleo-
chloa schoenoides and Roripa sylvestris. On my return trip,
having noticed Dipsacus sylvestris at Joliet I ventured to tres-
pass on friend Clute's botanical hunting ground for some speci-
mens of "teasel" — a weed truly but one I have seen only at
Joliet and in central Indiana. Among the rank spiny plants
I found also Conringia orientalis. In a neglected back yard
nearer home, I found Verhascum phlomoides and Polygonum
cuspidatum in most vigorous luxuriance, while along the sid-
ings of railway switchyards in the same city were found
Alyssum alyssoides and, as a chance visitor — but making the
most of its new surroundings. — Amsinckia spectahilis. — M.
P. Somes, lozva City, lozua.

The Year's Plant Products. — From the soil
and the air, during the last season, the plants culti-
vated by man in the United States have built up
products valued at the vast sum of nearly nine thous-
and million dollars. Corn comes first with a value
of seventeen hundred million dollars, king cotton follows with
eight hundred and fifty millions, wheat seven hundred and
twenty-five millions, hay six hundred and seventy-five millions,
oats four hundred millions and potatoes half as much as oats.
Reducing the increase to daily amounts it is seen that every
day of the 120 days during which the corn crop was growing,
this single crop added about fifteen millions of dollars to our
capital. And all this vast gain of all the crops, began as car-
bon dioxide and water in the cells of the plant, — cells so small
as to be invisible to the naked eye.

14 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

Trifolium Procumbens. — For three years I have
found the low hop clover upon cur lawn and at one other point
in this village. Until three years ago I had never seen the
plant though I have been studying the flora of this section for
over thirty years. — Orange Cook^ Chardon, Ohio.

Postage on Specimens. — It may not be generally
known (but to the impecunious naturalist, at least, it is worth
knowing), that the Express Companies carry your specimens
for half a cent per ounce, as against the one cent charged by
U. S. Post. This, whether the destination is Mexico, or
Canada, or your next-door town. This route is not only safer
and more expeditious, but also allows for any amount of
written matter, which, under a strict construction of the postal
laws, is forbidden. If any controversy arises with your agent,
refer him to "Section D." — Rez'. J. Davis, Hannibal, Mo.

Jingoism and the Price of Cabbage. — In these "pip-
ing times of peace" our martial legislators — who expect to re-
main at home in the event of any unpleasantness — are as
busily preparing for war as ever. During the ten years end-
ing with 1906 our government spent twenty hundred millions
of dollars for war and in the same time spent much less than
half of one hundred million for the development of agricul-
ture and then we are some of us silly enough to wonder at the
high cost of living. If things continue in this way much
longer we shall have to stop hunting for trouble with foreign
nations long enough to hunt something to eat for ourselves.
The farmer does not need a contribution in cash, being pretty
well fixed as it is, but he does need better roads and until he
gets them the cost of bringing his products to market will
continue to be added to the cost of living. It has been shown
by careful investigations, that with improved roads more than
1150 million dollars could be saved each year in the cost of

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 15

marketing the crops. In ten years we have spent 180 millions
in improving rivers and harbors but not a cent for good roads.
Progressive commonwealths liave.done something for their
own roads so that about two per cent of our roads are im-
proved, but we would like to see one or two battle ships
traded off for road making machinery.

Color of Turtle-head Flowers. — In an article in the
American Botanist for August, a writer from Wisconsin says
the flowers of Chelone glabra are "decidedly cream colored."
Near my home, in the hills of Central Pennsylvania, these
flowers are always pink, being a deeper shade at the tip of the
corolla. — Nell McMurray, Nezv Washington, Pa. — [The
editor can add that while he does not recall any really pink
flowers, he has found possibly a majority of the flowers in
Southern New York to have the corolla tipped with pink.
Doubtelss the locality and perhaps the season may have some-
thing to do with it. In this connection it is of interest to note
that Chelone Lyoni a plant well known to dealers in wild
flowers, has deep pink corollas and is frequently planted for
ornament. — Ed. ]

Fruiting of the Peanut. — Although the peanut is a
common and well-known plant, considerable mystery sur-
rounds its manner of fruiting, in the popular mind. The
blossoms are borne as any ordinary flowers are, but the fruits
are found under ground and many imagine that they are sim-
ilar to potatoes in the way they are formed. Various other
curious views as to their formation are held and there are not
a few people who think that after flowering, in order to have
peanuts, the blossoms must be picked off and buried about the
roots of the plant. Others have an idea that peanuts come
from cleistogamous flowers similar to those which produce
fertile violet pods. The real facts are these : The peanut

16 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

flowers in the regular way and is either self-polhnated or
polHnated by insects. After the flower-parts have fallen the
flower stalk lengthens, turns downward and forces the be-
ginning fruit into the earth where it ripens. It is easy to
make the experiment with the plant for ones self. Unroasted
peanuts may be obtained at the nearest peanut stand. Almost
any garden soil will do though a sandy loam is best.

Trees of America and Japan. — We look in vain
through the forests of Europe for such familiar forms as the
hemlock, the hickories, the tulip tree, the magnolias, the sas-
safras, the tupelo gums, the witch hazel, the Kentucky coffee
tree, the yellow wood, the locusts, the catalpa and the liqui-
dambar. Strange as it may appear, nearly al of these eastern
American forms occur nowhere else in the world save in east-
ern Asia, in the more temperate parts of China and Japan
where the same or very nearly related species are found.
What is even still more striking is the contrast between the
Atlantic and Pacific sides of North America. Excepting
along the mountain crests where the more or less world-wide
boreal plants find a congenial environment the vegetation of
the California region is related mainly to the dry plateau
lands of Mexico and South America. So far as the trees are
concerned, a native of the eastern United States wouifcl find
himself in more homelike surroundings in the woodlands of
temperate China and Japan than on the Pacific slope of his
own country. A tulip tree very similar to the one at home, al-
most, if not the identical species of sassafras, numeous closely
related magnolias, a near relative of the southern yellow
wood, the liquidambar, the catalpa the coffee tree the hem-
lock and other forms appear as familiar trees in the landscape
of China and Japan. This likeness between the two widely
separated regions is not confined to the trees alone. The
flora at large presents many features in common. The fox

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 17

grape, the poison ivy, the hydrangeas the wistaria the blue
cohosh the may-apple, the twin-leaf, the trailing arbutus or
may flower, and the creeping snowberry have each a more or
less closely related form in eastern North America and East-
ern Asia but are found in no other part of the world. — Popu-
lar Science Monthly.

Ancient Plant Lore. — The Assyrian King, Sard-
anapalus, must have been quite a book- worm if we may judge
from his library. Some twenty thousand stone tablets from
it have been dug up in the ruins of Nineveh. Those informed
in matters of cuneiform script report that the library is rich in
lists of plants and directions for their use in medicine and the
like. Indications seem to point to the fact that the old
Babylonians knew more about plants than their successors the
Greeks and Romans. We hope this is a mistake; otherwise
the "priority" people will begin to introduce these older
names which have been literally dug up. Who knows but what
we may ultimately be expected to describe our plants in
cuneiform characters instead of the latin now so much in
fashion !

Ups and Downs of the Name Tinker. — Evidently the
nomenclature game is one that several can play at and the
fact that nobody knows who has won until the last hand is
played adds to the excitement if not to the good feeling of
the players. A few years ago, one of our eminent botanists
thought a certain ancient volume gave him the right to throw
out Negundo as the generic name of the box elder and to re-
place it by the outlandish word Rulac. Recently the scholarly
editor of the Midland Naturalist has shown that Negundo
really has priority under the rules and away goes Rulac and
back comes Negundo. This is all very well, except that in
the shufile the Rulac man lost out of the combination and a

18 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

new name takes his place. He will rulac no longer though
he may rue Negundo. Another old name caught the editors
of the new "Gray's Manual" napping. In this edition a com-
mon wayside weed known as velvet-leaf or butter-print is
named Ahutilon Theophrasti this name displacing the better
known Ahutilon amccnnae. The joker, in this case was that
the name avicennae attributed to Gaertner, while antedated by
the name Theophrasti, was also used for the plant by a still
earlier writer and so Theophrasti, goes on the scrap heap
along with other blasted hopes.

The Wonder-berry Poisonous. — According to Bur-
bank, the wonder-berry is a hybrid between an African species
of nightshade called stubble-berry (Solanuin Guinense) and
the Pacific coast rabbit-weed ( Solanum villosum) ; according
to various botanists it is simply an improved variety of the
west coast plant, Solanwn villosum. The wonder-berry is
described as being much like the common blue-berry in taste
and quite devoid of the poisonous principle that make other
species of nightshade inedible, but there are some that report
it to be poisonous. Allowing the plant to be a real
hybrid as claimed by the originator it is possible that
both parties to the controversy are entitled to some credit.
If it follows the law of hybrids in general about one quarter
of the seeds would be expected to produce the characters of
one parent, one quarter the other parent and the rest hybrids
as before. Burbank claims that the two original species are
so blended in the hybrid form that the latter becomes a dis-
tinct species but even if the form gives no hint of the parent
species, who shall say that the physical natures of the two do
not breed true to Mendel's law. This would account for the
fact that such excellent botanists as W. Watson of Kew pro-
nounces the fruit poisonous. He may have examined plants
that had the rabbit-weed constitution. At any rate, he reports

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 19

the poison solanine, present. On the other hand those who
contend that the fruits are innoxious may have had the other
variation in hand.

Pine Seeds as Food. — To many people in the United
States the seeds of the pine seem to have Httle economic vahie.
Seeds of the eastern and southern pines are two smah to be of
any value but in the southwest are several species with seeds
large enough to form an appreciable source of food. In some
sections pine seeds may be regarded about as beechnuts are
in the New England and Middle States, but in others they are
held in considerable esteem. Gathering pine seeds is a recog-
nized industry among certain Indian tribes. In South
America the Chilian pine or monkey-puzzle tree (Aiirancario)
a plant well known in cultivation in greenhouses on this side
of the equator, yields a large amount of food. One tree, it
is reported, will supply food for a dozen persons. The cones
are six inches or more in diameter and each scale encloses
two seeds an inch or more long. Since the cones are borne
in abundance the pine seed harvest is of much value.

Growth Rings. — In regard to the growth rings you
mention on page 88 of the last volume I have heard what I
think to be a satisfactorv explanation, though to what extent
proved by experiment I do not know. I refer to the "fairy
circles" of basidiomycetes and the explanation applies to the
plants in question as much, I think. It will be noticed that
the circles are larger every succeeding year and it has been
said that the plants use up the humus food proper for them
and naturally extending outward as the spores are annually
dispersed. Starting from a small patch they pass outward
every season because the food supply gives out where they
were the preceding year. Of course the spores are spread
over the whole lawn but the greatest abundance is found

•20 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

where the plants are and the adaptation to environment best,
hence the reason for the gradually increasing circles. The
effect is certainly strikingly beautiful. The circles stand out
clearly in a well-cropped lawn some four days after a rain.
— /. A. Nieuivland.

Speed of Diatoms. — Nearly everyone who has peeped
through a microscope has seen one or more species of diatoms.
The cell-walls of glass most beautifully and delicately marked
make them prime favorites with the microscopist, indeed one
species of diatom is said to be used in testing lenses. Not-
withstanding their glassy cell-v/alls, diatoms are really plants,
though to see them moving about on the slide of a microscope
the hasty observer might jump to the conclusion that they are
animals. The movements of these plants have often provoked
speculation. Though seemingly rather lively it must be re-
membered that the microscope magnifies the motion as well
as the plant. The progress of the diatom is therefore said to
be relatively slow. Just how slow it is has been figured out
by T. Chalkley Palmer in the "Proceedings of the Delaware
County Institute of Science." Comparing the diatom, with
a man. he finds that to equal the diatom man would have to
go at the rate of more than 23 miles an hour and drag with
him 2520 pounds of extra weight ; or if he should devote the
energy necessary to move this weight to locomotion alone, he
would have to strike a gait of more than 450 miles an hour.
Evidently the diatom is not so slow after all.

-O O—

SCHOOL BOTANY

STUDYING BUDS.

What do we expect to accomplish by the dissection of
buds in the high school course in botany? Are we after fun-
damentals or are we simply "studying buds?" A good many
teachers seem content to assure the pupils that there are three
types of buds : the leaf buds, the flowers buds and mixed buds
containing both flowers and leaves; but a good teacher will
not stop here. The average pupils has an idea that all buds
contain flowers and it may require some little effort to con-
vince him that the leaf bud is far more abundant than any of
the others and that even this does not produce leaves, merely,
but a young twig as well.

Then there are growing buds and resting buds, the later
often with scarcely more protection than the growing buds
though usually such buds are well protected by bud scales. If
we are after the fundamentals we shall have to show that the
bud scales are really transformed leaves or parts of leaves,
decide what becomes of them when the buds begin to grow
and examine various methods which plants have evolved for
protecting these growing points through the winter.

A lilac bud is one of the best for showing that the bud
scales are transformed leaves. The transition from the scaly
parts without to what are clearly leaflike parts within is so
gradual that the most stupid pupil can see and understand.
In a second type of bud the scales have gone too far on their
way to ever be able to function as leaves and when spring
comes they fall off leaving a circular scar around the twig.
This scar is not noticeable in plants like the lilac in which
even the bud scales become leaflike. As an illustration of the

22 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

second type of bud the horsechestnut is usually suggested, but
in many localities a better one may be found in the buckeye.
The glue-like covering of the horsechestnut's bud scales is of
interest as illustrating an additional device for protecting
from evaporation, but this same sticky substance prevents a.
proper dissection of the bud by beginners. In addition, the
young leaves in the bud are so heavily coated with hairs that
it is difficult to make out their parts. This cannot be said of
the buckeye. The leaves are downy it is true but not enough
so to obscure the parts and the bud-scales are quite devoid of
the varnish.

Among the curious methods of bud protection, nearly
every text cites that of the sycamore or buttonwood in which
the bud is said to be protected by the petiole of the leaf. This,
however, cannot be said to be a protection to the bud in
winter inasmuch as the leaf falls in autumn. It simply pro-
tects the young bud until maturity. There are other plants,
however, easily obtainable in which the petiole really pro-
tects the bud through the wintei. The common red raspberry,
the flowering raspberry and the cat brier or smilax may be
mentioned as good types of this. In these, instead of the leaf
being cut off at the base, a cleavage plane develops at some dis-
tance above the bud and when the rest of the leaf falls the
petiole stub remains subtending the bud.

It is not easy for the teacher to find suitable material to
illustrate the arrangement of ciccessory buds. The red maple
is often suggested for the type having the accessory buds be-
side the lateral or axillary buds but this tree is not always
to be found nor does it illustrate the phenomenon any too
well. The peach, the forsythia and some oaks are usually as
easy to obtain and show the arrangement even better than
does the maple. For that form of bud arrangement in which
the accessory buds are arranged above the lateral buds, the
pipe-vine and Pterocarya are often suggested. A good
many teachers are not familiar with these, but just as good

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 23

material for this work may be obtained from vigorous young
twigs of ash, walnut, or butternut, the latter by preference.

Witch hazel is a fine type of naked bud when it can be
obtained, but if it is not at hand, the pawpaw, butternut and
many of the viburnums especially the cultivated ones, will do.
In this connection it should not be forgotten that there are
many buds not protected by bud scales which are not usually
named as naked buds but which are essentially such. Buds
like those of the catalpa, sumac and ailanthus are, at the be-
ginning of winter, scarcely more than mere living points, half
buried in the bark of the twigs but later in the season they
will show their character. For class work these should not be
used if better things can be obtained.

Probably the most important facts about buds from the
pupil's standpoint are the ways in which they are arranged
on the twigs, what they produce and how and from what they
are protected. It is well to emphasize the fact that buds do
not protect from cold for the moisture in them is often frozen
solid during the winter. Yet nine persons out of ten one
meets is sure that the chief use of bud scales is to protect from
the cold. In this they draw an analogy from their own cloth-
ing, forgetting that the wannth is supplied to our clothing by
the heat of the body. That bud scales may protect from sud-
den changes of temperature, no one can deny, that their color
may aid in warming up in spring is possible, but the real uses
of bud scales seem to be to protect from complete evapora-
tion, mechanical injury and decay. — C. N. IV. in School
Science and Mathematics-

Use of the Word Monocot. — The words monocot and
dicot, used to indicate plants produced by seeds with one and
two cotyledons respectively have at present, no standing as
legitimate words but there seems to be no reason why they
should not have. The dictionary allows us monocotyledon and

24 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

monocotyl but frowns upon any further shortening of the
words as the writer found to his discomfiture, recently in try-
ing to get these words past an argus-eyed proof-reader with a
limited knowledge of botany. For some reason the word,
monocotyl has never struck the fancy of botanists, but in
practically all the laboratories and even in addresses we hear
the shorter, though discredited terms used. When we come
to written work however, we nearly always find everything
relating to the two great groups of angiosperms mentioned as
monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous.

It may be permissable to call a plant with one seed leaf
a monocotyledon, but it is rather a confusion of terms to
write, as we constantly do, monocotyledonous stems and
monocotyledonous leaves. Does not the word monocot stem
express the same idea with less confusion? We certainly think
so and see no reason why teachers should have any hesitancy
in using the term both in speaking and writing. Here and
there a courageous author — one who is strong enough to
dictate to his publishers — has used the word in print and we
find such usage by no means confined to those too ignorant to
know better. Ruskin uses the word and among more modern
instances we may cite the recently published "Nature Study"
by Coulter and Patterson.

MoNOCOTS AND DicoTS. — Ask the average student to
give the differences between monocots and dicots and he is
likely to answer that monocots have seeds with one
cotyledon, stems with scattered bundles, leaves with
parallel veins and flowers whose parts are usually in
threes, while dicots have two cotyledons, stems with
bundles in circles, leaves with netted venation and flowers
with parts in fours or fives. This will do for a general dis-
tinction though there are numerous plants that disregard these
boundaries. There are several dicots whose seeds and stem

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 25

structure resemble those of monocots, the leaves of flax, a
dicot, are parallel veined, while the monocot arums, yams and
trilliums have netted-veined leaves. Several monocot flowers
are four-parted notably Aspidistra and Paris. Dicots with
three or six parted flowers are not rare. There are numerous
lesser differences between the monocots and dicots, however,
none of which will hold for all the species in the group, but
are nevertheless characteristic enough to be noticed. In the
monocot the bundle is "closed" and lacks combium, in the
dicot it is "open" and has cambium ; in the one the leaf-edge
is entire in the other notched ; the root-system lacks a tap root
in the first, and usually possesses it in the second. Monocots
more frequently lack a petiole and the leaves are not cut off
by cleavage planes, dicot leaves are just the reverse. The
seeds in monocots usually have endosperm, and the cotyledon
is terminal, in the dicots the seeds usually lack endosperm and
the cotyledons are lateral. Monocots usually store food in the
stem or leaves, dicots in the root. Monocots seldom branch,
dicots usually do. Monocots inhabit warm and dry regions,
dicots can stand more cold.

Teaching Agriculture. — The subject of agriculture
should be incorporated into the science work of the high
school and not superimposed upon the already crowded high
school course — a mistake that has been made often enough
that it should begin to be apparent to the friends of agricul-
tural education. And for this purpose, only the "principles"
of agriculture (or any other vocation) have a right to a place
in the course. That all principles of agriculture are scientific
principles and as such are the most familiar and available for
cultural use is here asserted. Courses of study providing
specific methods and practices in the economics of cutivation
of particular crops, harvesting, preservation, breed peculiari-
ties, care of herds — all being matters of information and skill

26 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

in the vocation of agriculture, have no more place in a general
high school course than have the methods and technical phases
of commerce, telegraphy, music, photography, pharmacy, as-
saying or a multitude of other subjects which the high school
course deals with theoretically without aiming to turn out
skilled operatives. The advocates of agriculture education in
the high school should be satisfied to have accurate instruction
given in the general principles including sufficient illustrative
practice of the vocation to .enable the pupil to master the de-
tails in his own peculiar way. — Josiah Main, University of
Tennessee.

KEY TO THE FAMILIES OF THE MONOCOTYLEDoNES.
The beginner frecjuently has considerable difficulty in
naming his plants by the use of modern keys,, because of the
strictly scientific character of the latter. It is the aim of the
maker of a key, to put into such descriptive terms as shall
make the identification of a plant certain from the key alone,
and while this is a prime requisite from the point of view of
the scientist, a more general key which shall gradually sift
out his plants is likely to be more useful to the botanizer who
recognizes his favorites quite as much by their color and
habitat as by more scientific characters. We have therefore
prepared a key to the monocots based upon the more obvious
characters of the plants, and one which makes even a simple
lens superfluous. If this meets with the favor of our readers,
we hope to issue keys for othc. divisions of plants. The key
is strictly dichotomous or forked. Of each two lines, one is
the opposite of the other. Lines which do not end with a
family end with a number which refers to two other lines
farther down the page. The letters and figures in parenthe-
sis after each family indicate the pages upon which the
families will be found in the latest editions of Gray's Manual
and Britton's Flora.

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

ts very small without true leaves. Aquatic,
ts larger, leafy (2)

lowers in a dense head or on a spadix (3).
Perianth colored, conspicuous.

Flowers yellow.

Flowers white.

Perianth inconspicuous or wanting.
Spadix on a scape or in a spathe.
Spadix spike-like.

Submersed or floating plants.
Marsh plants, erect.

Flower clusters cylindrical.
Flower clusters globular.

owers not in dense heads nor on a spadix (4).
4 Flowers surrounded by husk-like scales.
Stems solid, sheaths entire.
Stems usually hollow, sheaths split.
4 Flowers with conspicuous perianth (5).
5 Ovary inferior, perianth adherent (6).
6 Stamens one or two ; flower irregular.
Anthers one-celled. Seeds solitary.
Anthers two-celled. Seeds many.
6 Stamens three or more ; flowers mostly regular.
Leaves net-veined ; plants climbing.
I,eaves parallel veined ; not climbing.
Perianth woolly on the outside.
Perianth not woolly.

Flowers dioecious or polygamous.
Flowers perfect ; terrestrial.
Stamens six.
Stamens three.

Alternate with the inner segments.
Opposite the inner segments.
5 Ovary superior ; perianth free (7).

7 Calyx and corolla unlike in color.
Carpels several, distinct.
Carpels three united.

Leaves three or more, in whorls.
Leaves alternate.

Stigmas three. Epiphytes.
Stigmas united into one.

7 Calyx and corolla colored alike (8).
8 Leaves net-veined.

Flowers dioecious, six-parted.
Flowers perfect, six-parted.

8 Leaves parallel veined (9).

9 Styles and often the stigmas united.
Flowers greenish.
Flowers colored.

Regular ; stamens six.
Irregular or with three stamens.
9 Styles and stigmas three, distinct.
Ovary three-seeded.
Ovary six or more seeded.

Lemnaceae. (G. 259. B. 232)

Xyridaceae. (G. 262. B. 235)
Eriocaulonaceae. (G. 261. B. 236)

Araceae. (G. 257. B. 229)

Naiadaceae. (G. 69. B. 40)

Typhaceae. (G. 67. B. .38)
Sparganiaceae. (G. 67. B. 39)

Cyperaceae. (G. 171. B. 158)
Gramineae. (G. 86. B. 61)

Marantaceae. (G. 304.
Orchidaceae. (G. 304.

Dioscoreaceae. (G. 297.

Haemodoraceae. (G. 296.

Hydrocharitaceae. (G. 85.

Amaryllidaceae. (G. 297.

Iridaceae. (G. 299.
Burmanniaceae. (G. 304.

Alismaceae. (G. 80. B. 53)

Trilliaceae. (G. 279. B. 273)

Bromeliaceae. (G. 265. B. 238)
Commelinaceae. (G. 264. B. 239>

Smilaceae. (G. 279. B. 275)
Trilliaceae. (G. 279. B. 274>

Juncaceae (G. 267. B. 244)

Liliaceae. (G. 279. B. 260)
Pontederiaceae. (G. 266. B. 242)

Juncaginaceae. (G. 79. B. 52)
Melanthaceae. (G. 279. B. 254)

288)

289)

281)

278)

. 59)

278)

281)

289)

o ^ x EDIT ORIAL j , o

With this number we begin a department devoted to
school botany which, though intended primarily for teachers,
we hope will be of value to all students of plants. The ordin-
ary botanist — by which we mean the person interested prin-
cipally in collecting and exchanging — rarely realizes how
much he is affected by the botany taught in schools. We are
all desirous of seeing the tribe of botanists increase, if only
for the satisfaction to be derived from the knowledge that our
favorite study is a popular one, and we must therefore be
concerned with the subject matter and extent of the botany
courses in the schools. Not until recently has botany been
taught by the laboratory method, unless we dignify by that
name the pulling to pieces of a few flowers in the class-room,
and in possibly a majority of schools in America botany is
still taught "out of a book." Good botanical teaching by the
laboratoi'y method is not without its difficulties and it is our
aim to remove as many obstacles of this kind as possible from
the path of the young teacher. To this end we solicit the
notes, queries and suggestions of the large number of teachers
amon? our readers.

*t3

During the past few months we have been hearing a
great deal about a deficit in the postal service of the govern-
ment, and the effort that is being made to remedy matters in
future. The proposal to make up the loss in other depart-
ments by raising the mailing rate on magazines has met with
very decided objections, not only by the magazines concerned
but by the reading public as well. As is well known, maga-
zines regularly published go through the mails at the rate of
one cent a pound, but over in Canada the same magazines are
carried at the rate of a quartCx- of a cent a pound and there is

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 29

no deficit either. The deficit in our own service is due to
many causes among the foremost of which are the cost of the
rural free deHvery, and the expence of carrying an immense
amount of matter for the government free. But deficit, or
not, one thing is certain. If the rates are raised on maga-
zines every reader will have to pay more for them. If you
think you are paying enough as it is, you should call the at-
tention of your representatives in house and senate to the fact,

* * *

During the past nine years, no less than twenty seven
thousand, eight hundred and thirty-one periodicals in this
country have suspended publication, and there are only about
six thousand left. Those who are of the opinion that maga-
zine publishers constitute a majority of the millionaire class
may ponder these facts with good results. If the life of the
publisher was bound up in his magazine, as his interests are,
magazine publishing would be placed by life insurance com-
panies among the extra hazardous occupations along with
handling dynamite and flying air-ships. Anybody who would
like to try publishing, however, will find that there is nothing
especially difficult about it. A magazine is a good deal like an
air-ship. All you have to do is to make it go and keep it up

and beware of too much wind.

H^ ^ =k

Probably most of our readers are familiar with the name,
at least, of the Open Court Publishing Company, of Chicago.
The company was formed some fifteen years ago for the pur-
pose of publishing books on Philosophy, Science and Relig-
ion. The nature of the works published do not ensure for
them a very extensive sale, bui. this does not worry the com-
pany for it has an endowment fund of one inillion dollars!
In considering the publication of a book, then, this company
need not be influenced entirely by the likelihood of its becom-
ing one of the "six best sellers." If it merits publication it

30 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

is published, and if the pubHc does not know enough to ap-
preciate it, so much the worse for the pubHc. It is to be re-
gretted that somebody with means does not see the oppor-
tunity to do something handsome for the world by capitaliz-
ing the scientific press in much the same way. In fact we feel
sure that the time will come when this will be done. The be-
quests of wealthy Americans for schools, hospitals, churches
and libraries run into the tens of millions annually, and while
small amounts may be given to endow various phases of re-
search work in science in the colleges and Universities, not a
cent goes toward the work of making science understandable
to the common people, though our commercial greatness as a
nation depends largely upon agriculture and that in turn upon
botany and zoology. The spread of a knowledge of plants
and animals is handicapped by a lack of adequate means for
its dissemination. The botanical magazines especially are
failures financially. The editors serve without pay and the
contributors write with no thought of remuneration. Good
work of any kind is seldom done with the thought of reward
in mind — a piece of work well done is reward enough to one
in love with his work — but the tact remains that the knowledge
of plants is likely to spread slowly if left to the efforts of un-
derpaid botanists. We need an endowed magazine or pub-
ishing company that shall issue meritorious works on botany
whether the public is yet ready for them or not. A properly
endowed magazine could make plant study so attractive that
practically every child would become an enthusiastic plant
student. * x: *

The Chicago Academy of Sciences has recently issued a
bulletin on the Higher Fungi of the Chicago Region by Dr.
W. S. Moffatt. This forms part of the natural history sur-
vey of the region by the Academy. It contains keys to the
species and genera of Hymenomycetes found in the region
with descriptions of the species and 24 excellent plates from
photographs.

BOOKS AND WRITERS.

The tribe of Burroughs and Thoreau, of Bradford Tor-
rey and Wilson Flagg has gained a new recruit in the person
of Winthrop Packard whose two graceful volumes "Wood-
land Ways" and "Wild Pastures," recently issued by Small
Maynard & Co., add a new note to the literature of out-door
life which has been growing a trifle catalogue-like of late.
One finds in these books no directions for knowing either
beast, bug or blossom and yet they deal with all three from
the viewpoint of one who loves undissected nature and is alive
to its varied phrases. Both books have been inspired by the
wild nature in the vicinity of Boston — sights, sounds, and
happenings in the bird and insect world, that have doubtless
been seen, time and again, by other observers, but never be-
fore recorded by one with a talent for seeing the unusual in
the commonplace. The strict scientist may find the books a
bit too fanciful, the language a trifle too flowery, and he may
complain that nothing especially new is given to the world
in their pages, but to one who loves nature for its own sake,
such chapters as "Brook Magic," "Waylaying the Dawn,"
"The Frog Rendezvous," "The Pond at Low Tide," "Thin
Ice" and "White-faced Hornets," will recall many pleasant
days spent afield and prove most enjoyable reading. The
price of each book is $1.25.

Nearly everybody who knows birds is also familiar with
the various helps to their identification issued by Chas. K.
Reed, Worcester, Mass. For several seasons the "Bird-
Guide" in two tiny volumes devoted to the land and water
birds respectively, has been a prime favorite with many
students and there has recently come to join the group a
"Flower Guide" built on the same general lines. The latter
has as a sub title "Wild-flowers east of the Rockies" but in a

32 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

book of its size, only the more showy species, of course, could
be outlined. There are upwards of 200 flowers illustrated,
however. The reviewer feels bound to say that while the
convenient size of the guide will make it useful in the field, it
lacks much of the artistic finish of the bird guide and the
poorly colored drawings and rather inaccurate outlines de-
tract in great measure from its usefulness to the beginning
student. On the other hand, the habit of the more showy
flowers make their identification comparatively easy. In any
event, the booklet will do its share toward popularizing flower
study. The price of any of the guides is 50 cents.

The Universal Scientific Alliance of Mexico has began
the publication of a monthly magazine of Natural history en-
titled "Boletin del Comite Regional del Estado de Durango. '
The first number is dated December 1st, 1909 and is edited by
Prof. Isaac Ochoterena. It contains several articles on the
botany of the State of Durango as well as other matter. There
seems to be a wide field for such a magazine in Mexico, and
those in the United States who read Spanish will be interested
in it. It is published at Durango, Mexico.

THE BEST W0RK5 ON FERNS

OUR FBRNS IN THEIR HAUNTS, by WiUard N. Clttte. Octavo. SSS
pages. 225 illustrations. Eight colored plates. Contains the only il-
lustrated key ever published, and a full account of all the ferns of
Eastern America. The species can be identified by the illustrations,
alone. More copies of this book are sold annually than of any other.
Price post paid, $2.15.

THE FERN ALLIES OF NORTH AMERICA, by WiUard N. Clute.
Octavo, 250 pages, 150 illustrations, eight colored plates. A companion
volume to "Our Ferns in Their Haunts", containing a full account of the
scouring rushes, club-mosses, quillworts, selaginellas, water-ferns, etc.,
etc., in North America. Seven keys to the species. A check list with
synonyms. The only book on the subject in the English language.
Listed in the New York State Library Ust among The Best Books of
1905. Price post paid, $2.15.

SPECIAL OFFERS

Either volume and a year's subscription to American Botanist.. ..$2;50
Either volume and a full set of American Botanist, (16 volumes) .. 10.00

Both volumes to one address 4.00

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Both volumes and a full set of American Botanist, (16 volumes) 11.50

Address all orders to

WILLARD N. CLUTE & CO., Joliet, Illinois

Methods in Moss Study

Price $1.25

Of the several books which I have written, none
appear to be better appreciated by the public than
this little book on Mosses, which is intended as a
text book for beginners. These very attractive
plants may be found at all seasons, but there is no
better time than late winter and early spring. Send

for circular c.J . Majnard

447 Crafts St. West Newton. Mass.

The Bryologist

The Bryologist begins its thirteenth
year and volume with the January
number. The Index to the first ten
volumes is now ready, price one dol-
lar, this is necessary for the best use
of the journal, although each year has
separate index. It is the only journal
in English devoted exclusively to the
mosses, hepatics and lichens. Send
for a sample copy. Subscription one
dollar a year. Address Mrs. Annie
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" Brooklyn, New York.

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Milpitas, Santa Clara Co., California

Laboratory Manual of Botany

FOR THE HIGH SCHOOL

BY WILLARD N. CLUTE

The leading characteristics of this new and in many ways unique laboratory
botany are (1) its presentation of a connected study of evolution in the plant
world; (2) its method of thorough and suggestive direction for both teacher and
pupil; (3) its concise yet adequate lists of questions for answer in notebooks
after actual field or laboratory investigation; (4) its clear and accurate outlines
of the specific subjects.

In addition, it contains a glossary of difficult terms in each section, a key
for outdoor work with trees, outlines for a study of floral ecology, and tables
of the principal families and larger groups of the plant world.

The practical value of the book is assured by the fact that it is written by a
high-school teacher and has been used, in outline, for six years with marked
success in one of the largest high schools in the United States. It is absolutely
flexible and can be condensed or extended by individual teachers at any point
without detriment to the work.

GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS

Boston New York Chicago London

Atlanta Dallas Columbus San Francisco

Darwin and DeVries

De Vries has put the finishing touch upon Darwinism and his famous Muta-
tion theory is certain to claim a place equal in rank to tlie Darwinian theory it-
self. Everybody who expects to understand current scientific literature must
have a knowledge of how species are supposed to originate by mutations and
the only book which goes exhaustively into the subject is

SPECIES AND VARIETIES-Their Origin by Mutation

By Hugo De Vries. Octavo. 853 pages. $5 postpaid. Two years subscription to
AMERICAN BOTANIST given free with each order.

Less expensive but none the less important is

PLANT BREEDING-Comments Upon the Experiments ot Burbank and Nilsson

By Hugo De Vries. Octavo 375 pages. $1.70 postpaid. Sent with a full set of
AMERICAN BOTANIST for $6.50.

Willard N. Glute & Go,

JOLIET, ILL.

VOLUME J6, NUMBtK 2 WHOLE NUMBER 85

MAY, 1910

The AMERICAN
BOTANIST

CONTENTS

THE PLANTS OF THE SAND BAR-
RENS - - - 83

By Willard N. Clute.

THE FLOWERING RASPBERRY - - 39

By Dr. W. W. Bailey.

THE AGGRESSIVENESS OF PLANTS 89

By Willard N. Clute.

CENTENARY OF A BOTANIST - - 41

NOTE AND COMMENT 43

SCHOOL BOTANY 50

EDITORIAL - 66

BOOKS AND WRITERS 67

20
CENTS

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COPY

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YEAR

WILLARD N. CLU I'H & CO.

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"^he Americarv Botanist

A QVARTERLY DEVOTED TO ECOLOGICAL AND ECONOMIC BOTANY

WILLARD N. CLUTE ^ ^ ^ EDITOR-

9 The subscription price of this magazine is 75c a year, payable in advance.
It will be sent a year and a half for $1.00 and two years for $1.25. Remit by
money order, bank-draft, stamps or registered letter. Personal checks must con-
tain collection fees.

<| The first 13 volume^, were issued in monthly parts, forming half-yearly
volume*. Price per volume, 50c. A full set contains more than 1500 pages, 3000
articles and many illustrations. It is invaluable to all teachers, students and lovers
of nature. For price of full sets see advertisements or write for special offers.
Q Editors of Agricultural publications who receive this paragraph marked, are
Informed that the magazine will be sent to them free for one year upon receipt
of a copy of their paper containing either a notice of the magazine or quotations
from it properly credited.

WiLLARD N. CLUTE (Sc COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
209 WHITLEY, AVE., JOLIET, ILL.

Entered as mail matter of the second class at the post office, Joliet, IIL

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THE GUIDE TO NATURE

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Arcadia, Sound Beach, Conn.

Send for particulars and enclose (Oc. if you wish a sample copy

FLOWERING RASPBERRY.— /("h'^kn odoratus.

The American Botanist

VOL. XVI

JOLIET, ILL., MAY, 1910

No. 2

' 3^is like the birthday of the world

"When Q>unth was born in bloom;
t/he light is made of many dyes,
%/he air is all perfume.

Uhere' s crimson hues, and white and blue;

tJhe very rainbow showers
ZHaue turned to blossoms where they fell

•^nd sown the Qiarth with flowers.

— Hood.

THE PLANTS OF THE SAND BARRENS.

By Willard N. Clute.

OF the three groups into which the botanist divides
the plant world on a basis of habitat, the meso-
phytes are by far the most abundant and least at-
tractive. As the name indicates they are the middle
plants — those exposed to no extremes of moisture or
dryness — and, like people whose existence moves along
in well ordered ways, the story of their lives is likely to
be humdrum. If we read biography we wish an account of
stirring adventures, successful campaigns and difficult tasks
accomplished. It is much the same with plants. There are
many species among the mesophytes, the plants of our
meadows, stream-banks and woods, well-worthy of notice but
for real interest we must turn to the hydrophytes of xero-
phytes. Here we have plants of extremes and like all other
living things, when in extremity they are likely to do the ex-
traordinary. The hydrophytes are water plants and the varia-
tions they show us are mainly due to their attempts to cope
with too much moisture. It is usually easier, however, to get
along with too much of a good thing than not enough, and we

34 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

find this exemplified in the xerophytes or drouth plants which
for ages have been taught in the hard school of experience to
husban'd by all the means in their power the small amount of
water which they may suck up in their arid habitats. Among
them we find the most attractive and interesting of plant forms.

In many regions, one may find representatives of all three
groups. If any are lacking it is likely to be the xerophytes for
these are true desert plants. It is not necessary, however, to
have a desert, in order to find examples. A ledge of dry ex-
posed rocks will furnish conditions quite comparable to those
of the 'desert and prove inhospitable enough to the few mosses,
lichens and annuals that may endeaveor to maintain life upon
them. A region of sand dunes, is also one of the best in which
to study the xerophytes. A number of the typically desert
plants are, of course, lacking, but the remainder are still so
characteristically drouth-plants that it is not difficult to look
at them and imagine a real desert. The sand dune region is
interesting, too from another cause. Usually between the hills
of sand are held small depressions containing water in which
a typically hydrophytic flora abounds, and we thus have the
two extremes of vegetation side by side with few if any of the
intermediate plants.

An interesting feature of a sand-barren floras is the dis-
tinction that the soil makes between the so-called "calci-
philes" or lime-loving plants and the "calcifuges" or
those that do not grow well in calcareous soils. It is a dii^cult
matter to find representatives of the great heath family in
lime-stone regions, and a still more difficult matter to make
imported heathworts thrive in such soils. It is from this
cause that one cannot have thrifty rhodendrons in some lo-
calities. The absence of sphagnum bogs and their replacement
by sloughs and swamps is also influenced by calcarous matter
in soil water. But in sandy and clayey regions the heaths

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 35

abound; in fact this has been so thoroughly impressed upon
even the popular mind that dry and sterile regions are usually
called heaths. Typical heath plants in the Northern States
are the kalmias, wintergreens, huckleberries, blue-berries, deer
berries, andromedas, arbutus an'd bear-berry. In the bogs of
such regions we find another set of heaths that may still be
said to be drouth plants though their roots are immersed in
water. This is due to the fact they find it difificult to absorb
moisture from the bog water. Thus while their relatives on
the sand hills are in a physically dry soil they are little better
off for their habitat is physiologically dry. Some of these are
the leather-leaf, marsh rosemary, cranberry, snow-berry, and
some of the huckleberries and laurels. It is not unusual to
find considerable stretches of both sand and bog in which few
things grow except heathworts.

Another distinction made by the soil is due to the absence
of certain minerals necessary tc plants. Sandy regions are us-
ually lacking in nitrogen compounds and only such plants can
thrive in them as have special means of obtaining the essential
nitrogen. In the moist places we find the pitcher-plants, sun-
dews, butter-worts and bladder-worts setting their seductive
traps for insects, and on the sand hills are a multitude of
legumes which have gone into partnership with bacteria that
are able to obtain nitrogen from the air. These latter are
among the handsomest plants of the sand-barrens and include
the lupines, baptisias, tephrosias, partridge-peas, vetches, and
the like.

Sand-barren plants, like xerophytes in general, have
numerous ways of retaining moisture, once it is in the plant.
The majority spread the minimum leaf surface to the air, and
the cactus goes altogether without leaves, such starch as it
needs being made by its thick stems. A great number of plants
are covered with hairs which very effectually retard evapora-

36 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

tion, and such plants as lack a hairy covering will be found to
have placed their dependence upon a thick epidermis or a dense
coating of wax or "bloom." Turning to the water plants we
find a complete absense of these protective devices, an addi-
tional proof of the soundness of our theory.

The roots of our sand plants extend for long distances
under ground, often going straight down for many feet. It
is one thing to admire the handsome plants of the barrens, and
quite another to dig them up for transplanting. A few trials
even in soft sand will convince the botanizer eager to culti-
vate these plants, that it is far better to try to secure plants
from seeds than to dig them up. It is likely that even a sand
barren is never as dry as it looks. Not so very far beneath the
surface there is a moist layer, and this is slow to evaporate be-
caue the soft sand at the surface acts as a mulch and breaks
the chain of capillary moisture that would otherwise rise.
Some of these sand-plants, then, are not so much plants that
can live without water, as they are plants that liave learned to
go deep for their supply. Shallow-rooted plants cannot hope
to compete with them.

Not the least of the charms of sand plants coniv
blossoms. Plants with insignficant flowers are the exception.
Whether it is due to the habitat, or to the necessity of bidding
high for the visits of insects, certain it is that showy flowers
most abound where conditions are most unfavorable — on
mountain tops, in the desert, in arctic regions and the like. As
with men, it seems to require a certain amount of trial to de-
velop their best points. Added to this the generally lessened
leaf surface and the under populated soil, makes each blooming
plant stands out like a bouquei. One has but to call to mind
that magnificent plant the butterfly-weed, or the bracted
baptisia, or the lupine or bird-foot violet to understand what is
meant. The barrens are probably always more floriferous

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 37

than other regions when once they begin. The desert not only
blossoms like the rose but beats the rose to it. It may be with
a square mile of violets, an endless cloud of lupines, the yellow
suns of the rock-rose, and Agoseris or long banks of hud-
sonia or the golden aster, but in any event the result is to out-
shine other regions.

Next to the sand-barrens in the matter of flowers come
t*he prairies. At certain seasons they crowd the barrens close
for supremacy. It is not given to every botanizer to have easy
access to both regions but some are so fortunate. A very few
miles from where this is written, an arm of the true prairie
extends eastward over the Niagara limestone until it en-
counters the sand dunes at the southern end of lake Michigan,
bringing hydrophytes, mesophytes and xerophytes into close
juxtaposition. Here in certain directions the flora changes
more in going five miles than it would in going five hundred
miles in other regions. Since both prairie and barren are of
low altitude many of the flowers of mountain and ravine are
absent, but they can well be spared in view of the other at-
tractions which the region affords.

Joliet, III.

THE FLOWERING RASPBERRY.

By Dr. W. W. Bailey.

I T is the experience of every wood-lover that the thought of
* certain plants is potent to recall special localities upon
which the mind loves to dwell. In turning over the sheets
of his herbarium, the attention of the botanist is always ar-
rested by the portrait of some favorite plant, "the shy Lin-
naea" perhaps, or the alpine sandwort, and at once he is borne
into dreamland as by the magician's carpet. Home objects
vanish ; he is once more in deep odorous woods or well above
the clouds upon a New England mountain top.

38 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

One of the plants all powerful to summon up half sleep-
ing memories of loved spots and dear companions, is the
flowering- raspberry {Rubus odoratus). Growing as it does
on our lower mountains, like Wachusett or Monadnock, the
Catskills and Hudson highlands, or around the bases of some
of the higher ones like the White Mountains, it is naturally as-
sociated with scenes of uncommon beauty. To the writer it
recalls his childhood home, West Point and fond recollections
of those long departed. When one lands at Highland Falls
about a mile from West Point, his attention is arrested by a
stupendous cliff upon the summit of which is perched Lady
Cliff Academy — a Catholic girls' school. The road up to the
village is embowered in beautiful shrubs and trees and her-
bage. There grow magnificent tulip trees and native lindens,
birches, maples and other deciduous trees. There too, one sees
the bladder pod, with very pretty flowers in spring, followed
later by the inflated pods that children love to pop. Lower than
these, appearing as bushes three to five feet in height, are the
flowering raspberries with ample, maple-like leaves and
corymbs of rose-purple flowers — resembling, and almost as
large as, wild roses. The stems and petioles are clothed with
interlaced rufous hairs and the flowers are succeeded by large,
red, attractive-looking, but poor, insipid-tasting, berries. The
plant seems to satisfy itself when it produces such showy
flowers. The black raspberry or thimble-berry shows the op-
posite condition. One can scarcely find the flowers but the
fruits are large and luscious.

In the far West grows another species strikingly like
Rubus odoratus but with white flowers. It is R. Nuttallii.
The thought of it always brings back to me my first day's
botanizing on the Sierra Nevada. It was when I was with the
U. S. Geological Exploration of the 40th Parallel under
Clarence King. We went into camp at Alta on the western

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 39

slope and near the highway over the mountains. Near us was
a tremendous gorge full of all sorts of herbaceous plants and
magnificent trees. Columbines, larkspurs and the like were
abundant. It was a forecast of the flower-garden I was to
meet still higher. With Robert Ridgeway, the ornithologist
I explored this gorge and took a bath in the icy stream which
gave a part of its water to a rushing flume.

In the Franconia Valley of New Hampshire I remember
the flowering raspberry is gay along the beautiful road to the
Profile House; also up the path to Eagle Cliff on the Mt.
Lafayette trail.

So, one after another, the beautiful scenes return to me,
as I look at a herbarium sheet of Rubus odoratus. It is sur-
prising how charming a dried specimen can be when it is as-
sociated with far off memories of lovely scenes and dear com-
panions. It blooms again, as we look at it, with all its com-
panion plants.

Providence, R. I.

THE AGGRESSIVENESS OF PLANTS.

By Willard N. Clute.

A NY theory of evolution must of necessity include the idea
*^ of a struggle for existence; otherwise there would be
no incentive for plants to develop the thousand and one mar-
velous adaptations that look toward the preservation and per-
fection of those best fitted to survive; but we must not too
hastily conclude that this struggle for existence is always be-
tween plant and plant or even between the plant and its insect
and fungous foes. There are numerous areas where little if
any struggle of species with species seems to go on. In certain
swamps, for instance, the irises, cat-tails, sedges and the marsh
and sensitive ferns form communities which are apparently

40 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

dominated by a live and let-live policy. Their habits of life
are such as not to interfere with one another, while the nature
of the habitat is such that other species cannot come in and

start trouble.

The protection afforded many species of plants by their
habitat is a subject that usually does not receive the amount of
attention from plant students that its importance warrants. In
some instances as in sand-barrens, there is room for many
more plants than occur. The plants that are found in such
regions are thrifty enough and the only reason that sand bar-
rens are not more thickly populated seems to be the difficulty
experienced by similar plants in getting started. The same
is in a measure true of water plants which have nothing to
fear from an invasion of the plants on the shore.

We may never know exactly how important the varying
soil characteristics are in determining the habitats of plants,
but that they are often the chief factors in the spread of cer-
tain species cannot be doubted. We are frequently at a loss
to account for the aggressiveness or the lack of this quality in
plants, unless we attribute it to the soil. There is probably
not a single species of plant that, in a locality exactly suited to
it, would not run out any other species. It is not mere aggres-
siveness in plants that, in a v/ild garden, determines which
species shall survive and which shall perish. Change but the
soil conditions and many of the dominant species would soon
disappear. In planting a border of wild things we set but a
single sprig of some things and soon have it in plenty, while
other species, growing luxuriantly enough in the locality
from which we brought them must constantly be attended if we
would have them live. Since aggressiveness in plants is thus
seen to be so largely a matter of soil and location, the intelli-
gent gardener will exercise more than the usual amount of
thought in the selection of a proper place for planting a new

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 41

specimen. On a south bank it may persist and spread ; on a
northern slope it may dwindle and die. Its aggressiveness is
not a matter entirely of constitution and heredity but rather
of soil and situation and plant neighbors.

CENTENARY OF A BOTANIST.

x\ttention has lately been directed to the unusually large
number of eminent men whose centenaries have been celebrated
in 1909. To the list might be added Dr. A. W. Chapman, the
botanist. Although he lived most of his life in a comparatively
inaccessible place, and was personally known to but few peo-
ple, he was for a long time the leading botanist in the South,
as his contemporary. Dr. Asa Gray, was in the North. At
least three biographical sketches of him have been published,
but a brief outline of his life may be of interest to some of
your readers.

Of English ancestry, he was born in Southhampton,
Mass., Sept. 28, 1809. In his twenty-first year he graduated
from Amherst College, where he had already displayed a de-
cided talent for botany. The following year he moved to
Georgia, where he spent four years, mostly teaching. He be-
gan the study of medicine in the office of a physician in Geor-
gia, and received the decree of M. D. at Louisville, Ky.,
in 1836.

From Georgia Dr. Chapman went to Florida and practiced
medicine, first at Quincy, then at Marianna, and finally at
Apalachicola, where he spent the last fifty-two years of his
life. Within a radius of 100 miles of Apalachicola, there are
many species of plants which do not grow anywhere else in
the world, and the meeting with these on his professional
trips and holidays was doubtless a great stimulus to Dr.
Chapman's botanical work. Very few botanists had visited

42 THE AMERICAN BOTANISl^

those parts before, and many of the plants were nnknown
to science at the time he first saw them. At first he sent his
novelties to Northern botanists to be studied and described,
but the number finally became so large and the need of a
manual of botany to cover the Southeastern States as Gray's
"Manual" did the Northeastern so evident, that in 1860 he
published a "Flora of the Southern United States," a work of
over 600 pages, which remained the standard for the territory
it covered for many years. Supplements were added to it in
1883 and 1892 to incorporate the notes and specimens sent in
by botanists all over the South, as well as Dr. Chapman's own
subsequent discoveries, and finally a completely revised edition
was published in 1897 in the author's eighty-eightli year.

In these four books he described about 100 new species
of plants, most of which were discovered by himself in Georgia
arid Florida. But for his extreme modesty and conservatism
he might have described many more. The number of species
discovered by him and described by others would probably
bring the total of his discoveries pretty close to 200, a record
which has seldom if ever been equaled in the North Temperate
Zone. One genus of plants and at least a dozen species bear
his name.

Orris Root. — The orris root so familiar to lovers of
perfumes should really be called iris root since it is made from
the roots, or rather rootstocks, of several species of iris, espe-
cially Iris Germanica the common blue flag of the gardens and
Iris Florentina a white variety. It is reported that the root
has to be dried and preserved for some time before the fra-
grance is fully developed. The freshly dug plants have no
fragrance.

NOTE AND COMMENT

Z> d

Wanted. — Short notes of interest to the general botanist
are ahvays in demand for this department. Our readers are
mvited to make this the place of publication for their shorter
botanical items. The magazine is issued as soon as possible
after the 15th of February, May, August and November.

Density of the Tropical Forest. — Tn temperate reg-
ions forty or fifty different species of trees is considered a goo'd
showing for the woodlands of a county or even larger area,
while the trees themselves grew so scattered that plenty of light
can sift down to the forest floor. In the tropics there is a de-
cided difference. A writer in the Philippine Journal of
Science states that in a piece of forest a little more than two
acres in extent there was found, by actual count, eleven
hundred and sixty trees representing eighty-five different spe-
cies. These trees were all over twelve feet high and no account
is taken of other vegetation. In such a forest, one must keep
for the most part to the beaten path and cannot wander at will
in search of botanical specimens.

Spores of Fungi. — The spores of fungi, as with spores
in genera, are very minute. This is doubtless a design to fa-
cilitate their dispersal since they are cast upon the wind and
may float about for a long time before coming to rest. It is
commonly known that they are very numerous, but just how
numerous, few have any idea. A recent work on the fungi
gives some most astonishing figures on this head. The com-
mon field mushroom produces two thousand million spores,

44 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

but this performance is quite put in the shade by some of the
shelf fungi which produce five times as many. The world's
record for spore prduction seems likely always to remain with
the giant puff-ball (Lycoperdon giganteum). A specimen of
this enterprising species about twelve inches in diameter has
been estimated to produce seven million million spores. Some
of the larger specimens known must contain no less than
20,000,000,000,000 spores. Some other fungi may shed a
million spores a minute and keep this up for several days. In
view of this immense production of spores, the wonder is that
fungi are not more numerous than they are. Suitable places
for growth, however, are not very numerous and the same in-
vestigator reports that the chance of a spore alighting in a
favorable place for germination is about one in 1,000,000,-
000,000.

The Arctic Flora. — In exhibiting two recent collections
of plants from Greenland and Ellesmere Land to the Torrey
Botanical Club, Dr. Rydberg brought out several interesting
facts relating to the flora of those ice-bound regions. There
are about one hundred and fifty different species of plants
north of the Arctic Circle and with the exception of the
grasses and sedges, all of these are dicotyledons. One other
monocot, Tofieldia pdustris, is found in northern Greenland.
Twenty-six families of plants are represented. Nearly all the
plants are perennials with low and densely tufted stems and
thick rootstocks. There are probably not half a dozen annual
plants in the flora, and the woody species are scearcely more
numerous. Of course there are no trees but there are several
shrubs or rather bushes; among them the dwarf birch (Betula
Hah ellif olio), three willows {Salix groenlandica, S. anglorum
and S. herhacea), the crowberry (Einpctrum nigrum), a blue-
berry (Vaccinium uliginosum microphyllum) , Cassiope tetra-

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 45

goiia and Diapensia lapponica. Most of the shrubs belong to
the great heath family (Ericaceae) and several other members
of this family extend nearly to the Arctic Circle notably marsh
rosemary (Andromeda polifoUa), Mountain heath (Phyllo-
docc coendca), Labrador tea (Ledum decumbens), Lapland
rose bay (Rhodendron lapponicum) , trailing azalea (Chamae-
cistus procumbens) and Cassiope hypnoides. More than three
fifths of the plants are circumpolar, that is. they are found in
all lands that extend into Arctic regions.

New Conception of a Sub-species. — If one is not too

intimately concerned in the battles of the species-makers, there
is not a little amusement to be obtained from the curious
claims that are often made to bolster up shaky "species." All
such will be interested in the following note from Muhlen-
bergia in reference to a prairie sunflower. "An Illinois botan-
ist, some years ago, finding some differences in pubescence and
intranodal separation among the sunflowers referred to
Helianthiis occidentalis, considered these of sufficient import-
ance to require the segregation of a part under the name of
Helianthiis Illinoensis. Quite recently, another student, by
careful observation, was able to demonstrate that this segre-
gate was simply a condition, due mainly to hydrodynamic
causes. He discovered that plants, which in spring and early
summer were H. Illinoensis, were at the time of blooming and
fruiting, simply H. occidentalis. Most botanists, having es-
tablished this fact, would have contented themselves with re-
ducing the segregate to synonomy and noting under the spe-
cies its variations under certain conditions. In the present
case, however, the investigator 'proposes that these plants
should bear the name Helianthiis occidentalis illinoensis, comb,
nov.' It would be more in accordance with the facts that they
should bear that name 'in the spring and early summer' but

46 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

that in the fall they should be called simply Helianthus oc-
cidentalis. It seems, then, that there are botanists who hold
that a species and a sub-species may grow from the same root
and on the same stem, at different seasons ; may, indeed, gradu-
ally pass from one category to the other as the year rolls by.
What boundless possibilities do such conceptions open up.
What a multitude of plants must be provided with sub-species.
The case is especially strong for those trees which have very
different juvenile and adult foliage. In fact, why is not tl.e
bean of early spring showing only its cotyledons a good sub-
species of the very different plant which later in the season,
under the stimulus of nutriment moisture and light succeeds it
at the time of blooming and fruiting?

Aggressive Plants. — It seems to me that we too often
err on the side of making phenomena more simple than they
really are. Plants are vastly more complex organisms than
our formulated ideas recognize. Many of their phenomena
completely baffle us. For example, I might mention what has
been called aggressiveness in a plant namely, its ability not
only to occupy and maintain the soil but to spread and crowd
out other plants. This is particularly evident in plants intro-
duced from one country into another. Thus nearly all our
wee'ds are of Old World origin. The same is true of our
permanent meadow and pasture plants, where ability to oc-
cupy and hold the ground against weeds is essential. In this
respect our American grasses and clovers utterly fail before
the foreign immigrant. Some other striking instances of the
great aggressiveness of an immigrant may be cited. The in-
troduced English violet is said to be one of the worst weeds in
Mauritius; American cacti are becoming a pest in South Af-
rica; the marvelous vigor and spread of the American water
weed {Elodea) under European conditions is well known.

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 47

Several explanations of these and other phenomena have been
advanced. The commonest one is that the plant is introduced
but its fungous and insect enemies are not. Therefore the
plant is released from all handicaps as it were and can exer-
cise to the utmost its inherent energy. A second and related
explanation is that every plant becomes held within limits by
the competition of other plants in its native land and very often
in the new environment the native plants do not have an equal
restraining influence — because they have had to contend with
a different set of competitors A third idea is that any organ-
ism with the ability to spread at all becomes more energetic
through the constant mixing of blood of the advancing popula-
tion. All these ideas are interesting, but difficult if not impos-
sible of experimental proof. The last suggestion receives some
support from the fact that many weeds and other organisms
run out after they have ceased to spread. The recent examples
of the Russian thistle and the prickly lettuce are familiar
cases. Such phenomena may be due wholly or in part to in-
crease in enemies, but in many cases like the two cited there is
not one iota of positive evidence. I think we ought to give
such phenomena more consideration as they reveal traits in
plants that transcent all our sterotyped and inadequate theories.
The old gardener often treats his plants as if he regarded them
as sentient beings. Perhaps we err in considering them too
much machines. — C. V. Piper in Science.

Natures Planting. — When planting our flower gardens
we rarely plant as thickly or mix things up as thoroughly, as
Nature does in her wild planting. A writer in the Garden
Magaciiie notes that in a single square foot of prairie sod he
found five shooting stars, one purple rudbeckia, six spikes of
phlox, three wnld hyacinths, one aster, five clumps of blue-eyed
grass, two clumps of yellow star-grass and one clump of bird's-

48 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

foot violet besides other unrecognized weeds. Certainly plants
can grow and thrive under conditions that would be thought
anything but ideal in a flower gar'den. From what we know
of selective absorption by plants it seems likely that a variety
of plants have a better chance of growing in close proximity
than a pure stand of a single species. Possibly we could plant
our flower gardens in this way with good results.

Vitality of Pine Seeds. — It is well known that various
species of pine in the Western United States retain their cones
arid seeds for a number of years after the seeds are mature.
Sometimes these cones remain on the tree for nearly twenty
years. The question having arisen as to the vitality of the
seeds in such aged cones, several experiments have been made
in order to settle the matter. T. C. Blumer experimented with
six thousand seeds and found the older seeds not only as viable
as the younger ones but more so. Out of three thousand from
ten to thirty years old, 40% retained their vitality, while of a
similar number of seeds les than ten years old, only 31% grew.
The advantage of this prolonged vitality is that it gives the
trees a distribution in time similar to the distribution in space
of other trees. A forest of such pines may thus be repro-
duced in a locality more than thirty years after the last living-
specimens have disappeared.

Plant Hairs and Nitrogen. — We have many theories
and some facts to account for the uses of plant hairs but no-
body is sure that we have arrived at a correct solution of the
problem. Plant hairs may prevent the clogging of stomata
by rain or dew, or they may absorb water on occasion ;
they may protect from evaporation by shading the leaves, they
may afford a partial defence against sudden changes of tem-
perature and they may protect in a measure from the attacks

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 49

of grazing animals but whether these are their principal uses
we cannot be sure. Recently botanists have been asserting
that the epidermal hairs of many plants are useful in obtain-
ing free nitrogen from the aii. Up to very recent times we
have been taught that practically all the nitrogen iu plants is
taken from the soil in the form of nitrates but the investiga-
tions of several Old World botanists put a new face on the
n'latter. It has been known for some time that forest soils
steadily gain in nitrogen content from the decay of the leaves
of trees which seems to give additional evidence in favor of
the new theory, but further investigations must be made before
the idea is likely to be accepted by botanists.

Forms of Kalmia. — When one begins the intensive
stu'dy of any species of plant there seems to be no limit to the
number of forms that may be discovered. These forms are of
interest to the breeder and the student of evolution and if not
seized upon by the species-maker to further complicate the
nomenclature of the subject, are worth taking into account.
Practically any species of plant may be shown to have these
forms; even the nearly inflexible calico bush (Kalmia latifolia)
has several that bear latin names. Polypfala has partly double
flowers, alba has white flowers, rubra has deep pink flowers,
fuscata has flowers with a broad brownish purple band inside,
Myrtifolia has small leaves and forms a dense and compact
bush, and obtiisata has obtuse leaves. These, of course are
mere variations from the normal and even their describers had
no idea that they are distinct or permanent forms. Anyone
who chooses may describe a similar set of forms of other
plants. So long as all our plants are not thus divided the
study of botany, wil not be greatly hampered by the added
names and a few species-makers may derive enjoyment from
the results.

(>- — on

/l^^ SCHOOL BOTANY

TEACHING SYSTEMATIC BOTANY.

THE teaching of systematinc botany may easily get into a
mt, although there are sufficient variations in the way it
may be taught to give the teacher some choice of the rut into
which he may fall. The objects in teaching this subject at all
are three in number : to make the pupil familiar with the names
of our plants, to teach him something of relationship and the
use of a key, and to develop in him some of the ability to
judge and compare that is essential in any walk of life. To the
writer it seems rather a waste of time to spend any consider-
able part of the school year in memorizing definitions, and ex-
ceedingly foolish to set the pupil at such purely mechanical
tasks as "analyzing" flowers. If the pupil has had no previous
contact with plants, a part of his time may be well taken up
with a study of seeds, stems, roots, leaves, flowers and fruits,
but not with the end in view of learning the descriptive terms
that may be applied to them. He needs first of all to know
what these organs are for, and how they work. The technical
terms needed for systematic work can be learned in two or
three days, and if not the pupil has a glossary which he can
consult. An ideal pre-requisite to a course in systematic bo-
tany is a thorough study of the plant as a living thing.

The ability to make good herbarium specimens is a thing
to be desired, but this ability is not fostered by a miscellaneous
collection of tops secured in the effort to get fifty different
flowers. The pressing and mounting of these plants is waste
time — "busy work" — such as the teachers in the lower grades

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 51

are wont to give their children to keep them quiet and out of
mischief. Here and there in your classes a real botanist will
develop who will learn to pr^jss plants with your assistance or
in spite of it. Only such needs to be encouragfed to form p.ii
herbarium.

Usually flowers are abundant during only the last few
weeks in the term and the temptation is always great to crowd
the work in or'der to secure as many flowers as possible. This
seems to be a mistake. Too frequently teachers fail to interest
the pupils in the flowers themselves, the securing of the scien-
tific name apparently being the end and aim of the pupil's en-
deavors. This doubtless accounts for the fact that nine-
tenths of our botany students cease the use of a manual as soon
as school is out. It is very desirable, after the name of a plant
is learned, to investigate into its habits a bit ; to discover what
insects pollinate it, how its seeds are distributed and its
methods of attracting insects and other guests.

Unusual efifort should be bent upon the task of convinc-
ing the pupil that the end and aim of the course is not the se-
curing of the specific name Some, — nay many — are never
convinced and find the index always more attractive than the
key. Others there are who disdain all help from index or
classmates and take pride in working out the plants for
themselves. These may be early separated from the rest of
the class and allowed to go it alone. Usually at the end of the
season they will be found far ahead of the work required of
the rest. From pupils such as these come the real botanists.

How to convince the searcher of the index that the key
is better is often a difficult matter. Certain schemes, however,
may help to hold him to his work. He may be required to
write out the main heads of the key as he goes along as a guar-
antee that he has really named his plant by that means.
Another feature that needs to be discouraged is the copying

53 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

that invariably goes on by tlie weaker students. When one is
sure of the name of his species, it is often surprising how
rapidly the information diffuses through the class. One way
to overcome this is to require the name of the given flower,
when found, to be written down on a slip of paper and handed
in, and the slips not corrected until the end of the period. In
this way the pupil is taught to rely on himself and if he is
marked according to his work, he may be induced to become
an independent student.

But the teacher's work is only half done if the pupil is left
with a slavish dependence upon either key or index. He
should early be taught to recognize plant relationships. Many
of these he has recognized without a botany — the violets, um-
belifers, and composites, for instance — and he should soon be
able to recognize with equal ease, the crucifers, legumes, lilies,
borageworts, roseworts, mints and many others. It is not ex-
pected that he will keep the characteristics of the small families
in mind, but he ought to have a sufficient knowledge of plant-
relationships to perceive the great families to which they are
allied.

Lastly a good manual is essential to a first class course.
No pupil should be encouraged to neglect the weeds and other
plants with inconspicuous blooms by giving him a book con-
taining only the showy flowers. He needs a book that he can
depend upon, one that he knows contains his plant which may
be run down by a careful search. How discouraging it is,
after a long and honest efl^ort, to be told that his species is not
in the book, next time he will doubtless draw this conclusion
at the first indication of difficulty. By the use of a complete
manual, and a sensible course, he may be turned out an intelli-
gent botanist instead of a mere repository of latin terms that
will be forgotten as soon as exhool is out.

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 53

The Need of Science — The physician, the scientist,
the engineer, etc., must acquire the necessary knowledge and
skill in the course of his special studies. The jurist ,the
philologist or the theologian who has not acquired these ex-
tremely important elements while at school, will later find no
opportunity for getting them and run the constant risk of aton-
ing for his shortcoming through unpleasant or even danger-
ous experiences with his own person. What naive ideas on
matters of hygeine, chemistry and physics does not one meet
with in the lives of jurist and linguists. There is here evident
a serious defect in our choice of the educative material in the
schools and in the application to the needs of civilized life.
Science teaching in the high school is demanded, not for the
training of those who are to enter scientific professions, but
for the training of just those who do not select a medical or
scientific course. — Max Verzvorn in School Science.

Teaching Botany. — It is no easy matter to teach high
school botany well. Unless the instructor knows a good deal
about plants ; what they are, how they are built, what they do,
and how and (partly) why they do it, and knows fairly well
what his pupils are seeing and what they are thinking about,
he will accomplish little. Most of us have known dozens of
botany teachers but we could count the superemely successful
ones — in school or college — on the fingers of one hand. If the
time should ever come when most secondary schools are will-
ing to devote at least a year to botany, to give all reasonable
facilities to teachers of the subject and in turn to demand of
them as adequate preparation as is required of a teacher •
Latin or geometry in a first rate fitting school, we would
surely find that the educational value of botany is greater than
most of us have ever ventured to rate it. — Prof, J. Y. Bergen,
in School Science.

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

Ericaceae. (G. 626. B. 692).
Ebenaceae. (G. 648. B. 721)

Fumariaceae. (G. 416. B. 437)
Leguminosae. G. oOO. B. 523)

Malvaceae. (G. 566. B. 617)

Compositae. (G. 770 B. 889, 913)

Cucurbitaceae.

, G.

764.

881)

Lobeliaceae.

(G.

768.

887)

Campanulaceae.

(G.

765.

883)

Rubiaceae.

(G.

746.

860)

KEY TO THE FAMILIES OF THE SYMPETALOUS DICOTYLEDONES

1 Stamens more numerous than the corolla lobes (2).
2 Stamen filaments distinct.

Flowers perfect ; style one.
Flowers seldom perfect ; styles four.
2 Stamen filaments more or less united (3).
3 Stamens ten or fewer.

Filaments united into two equal sets.
Filaments united into a split tube around the style.
3 Stamens more than ten.

Filaments united into a tube about the styles.
Filaments united only at base into one or more sets.

Calyx free from ovary. Trenstroemiaceae. (G. 570. B. 523)

Calyx adherent at least at base. Styracaceae. (G. 649. B. 722)

1 Stamens fewer than the corolla lobes or of the same number (4).
4 Ovary inferior, adherent to the calyx tube (5).
5 Stamens cohering by their anthers.
Flowers in an involucrate head.
Flowers not in a head.

Corolla regular ; flowers imperfect ; \ ines.
Corolla irregular; flowers perfect; herbs.

3 Stamens entirely distinct.

Leaves alternate ; flowers regular.
Leaves opposite.

Stipulate or verticillate.

Exstipulate.

Ovary two to five celled.

Ovary one-celled.

Stamens two or three.
Stamens four.

4 Ovary superior, free from the calyx tube (6).
6 Flowers irregular (7).

7 Ovary deeply four-parted.

Leaves opposite, stem square.
Leaves alternate, stem round.

7 Ovary entire (8).

8 Four ovuled, four or fewer seeded.
8 Many ovuled several or many seeded (9)
9 Trees, shrubs or vines.
Seeds not winged.
Seeds w^inged.

Flowers violet-colored.
Flowers not violet colored.
9 Herbs.

Leafless parasites.
Leafy, not parasites.

Fruit one-celled ; leaves at base.
Fruit more than one celled.
Seeds borne on hooks.
Seeds not on hooks.
Corolla imbricate.
Corolla valvate or plicate.

Caprifoliaceae (G. 754. B 869)

Valerianaceae (G. 761. B. 876)
Dipsaceae (G. 763. B. 88^))

Labiatae. G. 690. B. 779)
Borraginaceae. (G. 679. B. 766)

Verbenaceae. (G. 688. B. 776)

Ericaceae. (G. 626. B. 692)

Scrophulariaceae. (G. 717. B. 818)

Bignoniaceae. (G. 740. B. 8.50)

Orobanchaceae. CG. 7.39. B. 848)

Lentibulariaceae. (G. 736. B. 845)

Acanthaceae. (G. 742. B. 853)

Scrophulariaceae. (G. 717. B. 818)
Solanaceae. (G 712. B. 809)

'THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

6 Flowers regular (10).

10 Stamens two ; shrubs.

Oleaceae.

(G.

650.

723)

10 Stamens more than two (11).

11 Opposite the corrolla lobes.

Trees or shrubs.

Sapotaceae.

(G.

648.

720)

Herbs.

Styles five, ovary one-seeded.

Plumbaginaceae

. (G

. 643.

719)

Style one, ovary many seeded.

Primulaceae.

(G.

643.

713)

11 Alternate with the corolla lobes (

:i2).

12 Shrubs and trees.

Style none.

Aquifoliaceae.

554.

602)

Style one.

Fruit a four-seeded drupe.

Verbenaceae.

(G.

679.

766)

Fruit a many seeded capsule.

Ericaceae.

(G.

626.

692)

12 Herbs (13).

13 Ovary one (14).

14 One-celled.

Ovules one.

Nyctaginaceae. i

(G.

375.

382)

Ovules several.

Leaves cleft or lobed.

Hydrophyllaceae.

(G.

676.

762)

Leaves entire.

Flowers in spikes.

Plantaginaceae.

(G.

743.

856)

Flowers not in spikes.

Gentianaceae.

(G.

654.

728)

14 Two or more celled.

Plants leafy at base only. Plantaginaceae,

, (G.

743.

856)

Plants with leafy stems.

Ovary three-celled.

Polemoniaceae.

(G.

673.

756)

■Ovary two-celled.

Leaves opposite.

Loganiaceae.

(G.

652.

726)

Leaves alternate.

Stem twining.

Convolvul-aceae.

(G.

668.

749)

Stem not twining,

Seeds four.

Borraginaceae.

(G.

679.

766)

Seeds many.

Style one.

Solanaceae

. (G

, 712.

809)

Styles two.

Hydrophyllaceae.

(G.

676.

762)

13 Ovaries two, or one deeply four parted.

Stigmas not connate.

Borraginaceae.

(G.

679.

766)

Stigmas connate.

Petals convolute.

Apocynaceae.

(G.

661.

737)

Petals valvate.

Asclepiadaceae.

(G.

663.

740)

Fragrant Arbutus.— In reference to the statement in
a recent number that arbutus (Epigaea repens) is not fragrant
in the South, Mrs. G. W. Sirrine, writes that in the vicinity of
Greenville. South Carolina, it is delightfully fragrant.

EDITORIAL

^ O ^

The plant collector or flower lover is rarely con-
cerned about the kind of botany that is taught in
the public schools but it would be well for him to
keep in touch with such matters if only for the view it
gives him of his own part of the science. Botanical science
has broadened so rapidly that any one of half a dozen divis-
ions of it may now engage the attention of the student for a
lifetime. As a consequence educators are not at all agreed as
to what is best to teach as "botany" in the High School. The
teachers range all the way from those who teach the science for
the purpose of "developing, strengthening and disciplining the
intellect" without regard to what the pupils may learn about
plants- to teachers who endeavor to give the pupil a good
knowledge of plants an'd at the end of the course to leave him
not only with the ability but inclination to continue the study.

* * *

It scarcely need be said, however, that botanical in-
struction in the schools, is not intended to make botanists of
the pupils. Rather it is to give them a knowledge of the
underlying principles of the science. It would surprise many
a plant collector to find how small a part the collecting and
identifying of flowering plants plays in real botanical teach-
ing. Time was when "botany" meant simply learning the
names of the parts of a plant, the "analyzing" of a few flowers
and the making of an herbarium of a certain number of speci-
mens. This no doubt accounts for the assumption by many
plant collectors that because they can identify plants they are
botanists. In the days we speak of, laboratory work in botany
was scarcely known in the high school and field v/ork, aside
from gathering flowers had no existence.

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 57

When the reaction from flower analysis came, the ma-
jority went in for physiological and morphological botany,
until this side of the subject m some institutions, became as
much over done as was the other. Pupils left school after a
course in botany with certain ideas about plants it is true,
but incapable of distinguishing a dandelion from a daisy or of
finding out how to do so. To them the wonderful features of

plant life were so much vegetation and nothing more.

* * *

There are teachers, however, who still insist that the boy
or girl who has had botany in school should be able, later in
life to recognize noxious weeds at sight, to make a botanical
specimen that can be identified by the nearest agricultural ex-
periment station when they turn to it for help, to know a
poisonous plant from a harmless one, and last but not least, to
be familiar with the more noticeable species of herbs, shrubs
and trees in their vicinity. The need for such knowledge is
urged not solely upon the grounds of utility, though utility
alone is sufficient, but because of the simple delights that an

acquaintance with the flowers adds to life.

* * *

BOOKS AND WRITERS.

"Who's Who Among the Ferns" is the title under which
W. J. Beecroft has issued a series of drawings of our native
ferns with short discriptions of their form, range and time of
fruiting. The book is a small 12mo. intended for use in the
field, arid is published by Moffat, Yard & Co., at $1.00 net.

Many of our readers still remember with pleasure the
regular visits of Meehans' Monthly and regret its untimely
end. After the lapse of some years the house of Meehan has
again entered the publishing field. This time it is an excellent
monthly publication named Meehans' Garden Bulletin. This
is evidently designed primarily to augment the sales of the
Meehan nurseries, but its pages contain a wealth of practical

58 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

information on gardening subjects that everyone who loves
plants will be glad to have. It was begun in September 1909
and is edited by S. Mendelson Meehan. We wish the maga-
zine all success.

A series of booklets, each devoted to a single tree species,
has been begun by Sarah W. Maury. Three numbers devoted
to the Beech, the Gingko and the Holly respectively have al-
ready appeared. These are small square volumes bound in at-
tractive stiff covers and quite appropriate for use on arbor
days and the like. Each is well illustrated partly in color and
the text sets forth the merits of the subject in an interesting
way. We shall welcome a full series if as well done as the early
numbers. The booklets are published by the John Lane Com-
pany, at New York, at 30 cents each, postpaid.

Fernow's "The Care of Trees in Lawn and Park" recently
issued by Henry Holt & Co., bear some of the ear-marks of a
book made to order. The author says in the preface that it
was due largely to accident that it was compiled and elsewhere
in the book, authority for various parts are disclaimed. After
a careful reading of the book, however, the reviewer finds little
that needs apology. The author is professor of Forestry in
the University of Toronto rind thoroughly informed on his
subject and aside from a rather halting literary style, has made
a very good volume. About two-thirds of the nearly four
hundred pages are devoted to the diseases of trees, whether
caused by insects, fungi, soil conditions, or due to obnoxious
gases, electricity or mechanical injuries, and the improvement
of trees by fertilizing, pruning, etc. The remainder of the
book is taken up with lists of trees and shrubs commonly
planted with notes on their habitats, appearance and other
characteristics. There are upwards of one hundred illustra-
tions. The book sells for $2.00 net.

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 59

The J. B. Lippincott Company has selected certain parts
of Prof. Scott Elliot's "The Romance of Plant Life" to form
one of the books in their "Wonder Series" under the title of
"The Wonders of the Plant World." Since the book is of
British origin and intended primarily for British readers it
will be of less value on this side, nevertheless the amateur
botanist, interested in the curious things about plants will find
much to his taste in the book. Such titles as Flowers, Forests,
Scrub, Deserts, Activity of Vegetables, and Story of the fields,
will indicate its scope. The text is very well written but the
facts detailed seem in many cases rather jumbled together.
The book covers about 150 pages and sells for 75 cents.

The names of Hilgard and Osterhout on the title page of
a work devoted to "Agriculture for Schools of the Pacific
Slope" is sufficient guarantee that it is both scientifically accu-
rate and up-to-date. It must be the reviewer's task to discuss
the arrangement and scope of the book. In this there is much
to commend. The early chapters discuss the plants needs and
how they are satisfied, the origin of the soil, cultivation,
propagation, grafting, etc., and then follow others on insect
pests, plant diseases, field crops, and the like. Farm animals
are briefly discussed, forcasting the weather is explained and
some attention is gives to forestry. Even human physiology
comes in for some pages. At first glance the book seems rather
too extensive for a season's course, but it has been the de-
sign of the authors to give more than is needed for a single
course and allow each teacher to select such parts as are suited
to the locality. The one thing that militates against the use of
this book in schools is the fact that the text is entirely descrip-
tive with no directions for pupil or teacher for practice work.
If agriculture is to be introduced into our public schools, it
should be the aim if every teacher to get as far away from
"book-farming" as possible. It cannot be denied that the be-

60 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

ginner must have books that describe many of the things with
which he will later become familiar in practice but the mere
recitation of a text relating to agriculture is not agriculture in
any worthy sense. It is to be hoped that the authors, who are
especially fitted for the task, will later give us a manual for
practical work to accompany their excellent text. The book
contains more than two hundred illustrations making it fur-
ther attractive to the young student. Since the main features
of agriculture do not vary much with the region, all who are
interested in any phase if the subject will find this a very use-
ful book. It is published by the MacMillan Company at $1.20
net.

As the diseases of plants have become better known there
has grown a nee'd for an authorative book on the subject. This
has now been supplied by B. M. Duggar's "Fungous Diseases
of Plants." The book is one of the most complete and satis-
factory volumes that we have seen. It begins with nearly fifty
pages devoted to culture methods and the technique of handl-
ing and staining. This and the next few pages on Physiologi-
cal Relations will be chiefly of interest to the student and in-
vestigator but the remainder of the book, some four hundred
pages is a practical treatise in the diseases of plants in which
each form is discused with regard to its occurrence, symptoms,
the fungus that causes it, and methods of control. Copious
citations of literature of the subject make it easy for any
who desire to go fully into any phase of the subject. From the
book we learn that plant diseases are caused by a vast number
of fungi coming from all the classes of these plants. The as-
comycetes and the fungi imperfecti furnish by far the largest
number of organizations causing diseases in plants but the
basidiomycetes are not far behind. The bacteria supply a com-
paratively small number of harmful species. The book is well
and extensively illustrated and written in a style that any

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 61

farmer can undertsand though it is thoroughly scientific is
every respect and is designed to serve as a text book for uni-
versities and colleges. A host index renders it possible for the
student to readily discover the nature of a given disease in his
crops. The volume is published by Ginn & Co., at $3.00.

The question of the fertility of the soil and how to main-
tain it is one of paramount Importance to every farmer and
.therefore to the rest of us who depend upon the farmer for
food. In recent years the theory that there is in most soils a
sufficiency of the chemicals needed by plants for all time, has
been stoutly argued and as stoutly combatted by those who be-
lieve that soils can be worn out and must be improved by fer-
tilizers. A notable contribution to the discussion is "Soil Fer-
tility and Permanent Agriculture" by C. G. Hopkins well
known for his work in soil chemistry at the Illinois Experi-
ment Station. Dr. Hopkins is on the side of those who advo-
cate the improvement of our soils by fertilizers and takes no
uncertain stand on the subject. In his book he goes very ex-
tensively into the chemistry of soils, the sources of plant food
and crop recjuirements, and draws his conclusion in favor of
fertilizers. Much space is also given to detailed accounts of
soil investigations in this country and abroad and the factors
in soil fertility are carefully analyzed. However much the
two schools may differ, as to the effect of fertilizers, they agree
in this, that good crops cannot be grown indefinitely on an}-
soil without them. Whether they are needed, as Dr. Hopkins
contends, to supply an actual lack in the soil, or whether, as
his opponents assert, they are useful to plants only as they en-
able them to neutrolize various toxic elements in the soil, is a
question that apparently canrot be decided at present. If
manures are necessary to keep the plant food in the soil at its
highest state, it is difficult to account for the fertility of most
virgin soils, while the fact that certain plants are undoubtedly

62 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

toxic to certain others when grown in their vicinity seems to
bear out the contention that one of the functions of fertiHzers
is to neutralize these toxic elements in the soil. Be this as it
may the present book is a very clear and comprehensive ac-
count of Dr. Hopkins' investigations arid conclusions and must
be taken into account by all who are concerned in improving
the land. It is an octavo of more than 650 pages and is pub-
lished by Ginn & Co.. at $2.75.

Beecroft's "Who's Who Among the Wildfiowers" is
another little volume designed to aid the beginner in naming
the commoner wildfiowers. It arranges the plants according
to color and presents a succession of drawings with brief de-
scriptions of the plant its range and time of blooming. Part
of each descriptive page is reserved for notes. Many of the
'drawings are evidently taken frim other works but many serve
the purpose of giving an idea of the fiower. The lack of any
popular information about the different species represented
will be felt by those who are desirous of knowing more about
the plant than its mere name indicates. The book, however,
costs less than other works of similar nature and will doubtless
be welcomed by many who are interested in the w^ild flowers.
The book is published by Moffat, Yard & Co., of New York,
at $1.20 net.

Often in turning the leaves of the seedman's catalogue
we have wished for a book that would tell us of these garden
flowers much as the popular flower-guides tell us of our com-
mon wildowers. It is with special delight, then, that we turn
to the newly issued "Our Garden Flowers" by Harriet L.
Keller only to fin'd with regret that the author has failed to
perform her self-imposed task successfully. Garden flowers in
abundance tlie book contains, but the very flowers of which
we know least and would fain know more, are missing. For

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 63

instance, the common yellow and the orange clay lilies
(Hemerocallis) are described but not a wort is said about the
copper-colored relative of these, or that later lemon lily of
August. Cases of this kind could be multiplied indefinitely.
On the other hand, we find described such insignificent weeds
as the chickweed, mallow, and purslane, and garden vegetables
like the beet and spinach. For the sake of more flowers we
would willingly dispense with the vile weeds and w^ell known
pot-herbs. We hope the author, or someone else will have
another try at this subject. So far as the book goes into the
subject, however, it is excellent, having much the appearance
of other popular manuals with the important features of leaf
and flower indicated with more or less matter of a general
nature following. The reviewer likes the book but regrets its
incompleteness. As it is, it runs to 550 pages and nearly 300
illustrations. It is published by Chas. Scribner's Sons, NeW'
York.

The authors of "The .School Garden Book," Messrs.
Weed and Emerson, define the school garden as any garden in
which a boy or girl of school gge is interested. By this defini-
tion they have an extensive fiel'd from which to cull the mater-
ial for their book and while they have presented us with a use-
ful reference work destined to be consulted frequently by the
young gardener it can in no sense be considered as a practical
manual of gardening for schools. After an introduction of
some twenty pages addressed primarily to the teacher there
are twelve chapters named for the month beginning with Sep-
tember. In these, in addition to the discussion of flowers that
are usually common in such months, or are planted then, there
is more or less matter on preparing the soil, selecting seed,
cotyledons, structure of flowers and the like. This part is
largely descriptive and still appears to have the teacher in
view^ The concluding pages contain a series of garden exer-

64 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

cises for pupils in which they are directed in the work of plant-
ing and cultivating plants, and required to draw various parts,
make records of their growth and write up their experiences.
The book can scarcely be used as the basis for the school gar-
den course but it will offer many helpful suggestions. The
book is published by Chas. Scribner's Sons, New York.

The "New Manual of Rocky Mounain Botany" by
Coulter and Nelson is likely to prove most satisfactory to the
great majority of botanical students. It is practically a new
book, having been entirely re-w-ritten. but the treatment is es-
sentially that of the earlier volume. It is perhaps unadvisable
for one not familiar with the Rocky Mountain flora to pro-
nounce upon the treatment of species and varieties. The fact
that the author, notwithstanding somewhat radical views, has
reduced to synonony nearly eighteen hundred species indicates
that, at least a middle course has been followed. The nomen-
clature is according to the Vienna rules ensuring something
like stability to this phase of the work. There are also excel-
lent keys to all the genera and species placed at the beginning
of each genus where they should be and not scattered among
the descriptions of species. Unusual features are the placing
of the common name at the end of the description of the spe-
cies and the citation of the place of publication of all the spe-
cific names. The book, like the earlier one is published by the
American Book Company.

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Laboratory Manual of Botany

FOR THE HIGH SCHOOL

BY WILLARD N. CLUTE

GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS

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De Vries has put the finishing touch Upon Darwinism and his famous Muta«
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By Hugo De Vries. Octavo. 853 pages. $5 postpaid. Two years subscription to
AMERICAN BOTANIST given free with each order.

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AMERICAN BOTANIST for $6.50.

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JOLIET, ILL.

VOLUME 16, NUMBER 3

WHOLE NUMBER &6

AUGUST, 1910

The AMERICAN
BOTANIST

CONTENTS

SOME RARE VERMONT PLANTS - 65

By Lestnn A. \\'liee!er.

PARNASSIA - - - . - 68

By Dr. \V. W. B;iiley.

THE HISTORY AND FUTURE OF
FORESTRY IN THE UNITED
STATES ------ 70

By Mriry F. flaggerty.

NOTE AND COMMENT - - - 77

SCHOOL BOTANY - - - - 86

EDITORIAL - - - . . 92

BOOKS AND WRITERS - - - 93

WILLARD N. CLUTE & CO.

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"^he Anfiericarv Botanist

A QUARTERLY DEVOTED TO ECOLOGICAL AND ECONOMIC BOTANY

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PICKEREL WEED AND BURR REED IN COLD POND.

The American Botanist

VOL. XVI JOLIET, ILL., AUGUST, 1910 No. 3

"^um/ner e66s, each day that folloivs
kJs a feflex from on high,
Kjendlng to the danlisome hollows <- oRARY

Where the frosts of winter lie," .' .1^ .^.^J^*^

—Wordsworth .

iiOTANICAL
<iA&DEN.

SOME RARE VERMONT PLANTS.

By Leston a. Wheeler.

/^NE morning the latter part of July with my faithful horse
^-^ I left our Townshend home and drove up through the
beautiful valley of West River to Jamaica. Here we met our
friend, and proceeded on, over the hills, to Cold Pond, a fair
sized sheet of water lying in a remote corner of the town.
West River valley is not only beautiful but it is interesting,
especially to the botanical student, as along its shores are to be
found some of the rarer Vermont plants. Here is seen in great
abundance burnet (Poferium canadensis) which is found no-
where else in the state, so far as the writer knows, sand cherry
(Prunus pumila) found elsewhere only in the Lake Cham-
plain and Connecticut river valle3^s, billberry (Vaccinium
caespitosum) reported from Washington and Mt. Mansfield's
Chin, and tubercled orchis (Habenaria flava) common only
in favored haunts.

We left our horse in a friendly barn at Winhall Station
and took our press, vasculum, kodak and lunch and tramped
the remaining mile to our destination. We were delayed
somewhat at the depot by several railroad immigrants among
which were carpet weed {Mollugo verticillata) , tumble
mustard (Sisymbrium alHssimum), and sand spurry

68 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

(Spergularia rubra) a Vermont rarity being found only in
three other places in the state u^) to the publication of the
"Flora" in 1900.

We found tlie road tn the pond much better than we had
been led to expect. An old farm at the end of this road was
being "hayed" by some men who kindly directed us to the
pond lying hidden in the woods near by. As we came out on
the shore at the "landing" (if an old log or two and a half
submerged boat might be so termed) we stopped for a few
minutes to take in some of the beauties of the scene as w^ell as
to plan our visit further. The pond is of an irregular pear
shape with a sharp bend near ihe neck so that the smaller end
lies toward the south while the larger end. from which flows
a small stream, lies to the eastw^ard. There is no inlet, the
bogs about its shore showing it to be fed by springs. The
day was fine and not uncomfortably warm, with a fresh breeze
keeping the water in almost constant motion and causing it to
sparkle enchantingly in the su;ilight. The deep shadows under
the overhanging trees on the shore were in pleasing contrast
with the shining open water w^hile the surrounding forest-clad
hills formed a beautiful background for the picture.

Various aquatic plants about the landing arrested our at-
tention. Pickerel weed {Ponlcdcra cordata), although by no
means rare to the state, was new tu me and I was much pleased
with its beauty. It is growing in this pond in considerable
abundance in company with burr reed (Spargoiiiiiiii). Lobelia
Dortmaniia was common in the more gravelly portions; tins
being the third pond in AA'indliam county where I have seen it.
']"he others are Grout pond in Stratton and Sunset lake in
Marlboro. Floating heart [Xyinphoides lacunosum) was
common; also the yellow pond lily {Nymphara advena) .
Well out from tlie shore where they uere literally "rocked in
the cradle of the deep" were the beautiful, fragrant blooms of
the white water lily {Castalia odorata). Neither water shield

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 67

(Brasenia pel fata) nor Potamogeton were common in this
pond.

There being no serviceable boat at hand we decided that
a tramp around the shore gave the greatest promise of suc-
cess and this plan we proceeded to carry out. We found a
path nearly all of the way near the shore which we follow^ed,
pausing now and then, as some plant especially attracted our
attention, or to take a picture.

It would make a long story, as well as an uninteresting
one to attempt to enumerate all of the plants which we saw on
our way; therefore with the mention of a few of the most
prominent ones I will leave to the imagination of the reader
the task of filling up the many interstices of that stroll in the
woods near the water's edge. The pink lady's-slipper (Cy-
pripedmm acaule) showed by its many scapes what it had been
doing in its own allotted season while the large purple fringed
orchis {Habenaria ftmbriata) gave one almost perfect spike
and many that were in various stages of fruitage. H. clavel-
lata was very abundant and showed some of the largest blooms
that I ever saw; but of the tall white orchis (H. dilatata) we
saw not one. Among the ferns w^e saw Nephrodium crista-
tum and its variety Clintonianum as well as an abundance of
Osmunda, Onoclea, etc. There was quite a quantity of wild
calla {Calla palustris) along a portion of the shore. A few
plants of Rosa blanda were found at the southern end of the
pond. The most noticeable shrubs were the swamp pink
{Rhododendron nudiflorum) , the mountain holly {Nemo-
panthiis mucronata) with its crimson berries in great profus-
ion, and the blueberries ( Vaccinium pennsylvanicum, V. vacil-
lans and V. corymbosum) ; the first on a dry knoll opposite
the landing where we ate our lunch among the remains of old
camps. In the bogs around the outlet we found quite a quan-
tity of the small cranberry {V. oxy coccus).

As we approached the eastern end of the pond after lunch

6t THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

we startled up a pair of herons who manifested their displeas-
ure at our intrusion of their private dining room by hoarse
croakings as they flew to their forest home. Wlien we ar-
rived at that part of the shore from whence they h^d taken
their departure we found the mud well covered with their
tracks where they had been searching for the fat tadpoles which
abounded all about the pond in the shallower water.

About the lower end are small bogs which proved pro-
ductive ground for us. Here was the pitcher plant {Saracenia
purpurea) and sundew {Drosera rotundifolia and D. longi-
folia) the latter being collected for the first time by either of
us as it is not generally common in Vermont although Wind-
ham county seems to be the most favored portion in this re-
spect. Pogonia opJiioglossoides was abundant in the sphagnum
but we looked in vain for signs of its companions the Arethusa
and Calopogon. The seven angled pipe-wort {Eriocaulon
articulatum) was found here among many other marsh loving
plants. The most important find of these bogs, if not of the
day, was the yellow-eyed grass {Xyris montana) which was
not only new to us but so far as the w'riter can learn is new to
the state. The first colony we found was small but a few
minutes later we found another bog where is was very plenti-
ful over a small area.

The hour fur departure came far too soon to permit of
anything like a thorough study of the plant life about the
pond for as we were far from home we had to leave early; so
with a good-bye shot with the camera we wended our way
back to the haunts of men. As I was driving down the valley
after leaving my friend at Jamaica I saw, just as the dusk was
beginning to lower, a doe with her two spotted fawns beside
the road and as they did not seem afraid I stopped and watched
them for a few moments. The beautiful scene seemed to give
a parting blessing to the day's pleasure.

Townshend, Vermont.

PARNASSIA.

By Dr. W. W. Bailey.

' I *HE plants of the Saxifrage family, to which old Dios-
■*■ corides gave the name of grass of Parnassus, well de-
serves its divine title. It is easy to fancy it growing on the
heights aftected by the gods on the border of cloud-fed ponds.

The beginner who first discovers its large and showy
flowers in late autumn, thinks at first that he has found a new
anemone. The five white petals, veined with delicate green or
yellow-ish lines, suggests that genus. Examination, however,
shows that our plant, unlike an anemone, has both calyx and
corolla, the sepals sometimes slightly united at base.

Within the petals and at the base of each is a cluster of
sterile filaments tipped by glands. These secrete no nectar, but
Kerner tells us they deceive flies into approaching them and
thus getting dusted with the pollen of the five neighboring
proper stamens w-hich is then borne to the pistils of other
flowers of the same species. Some of our many young stu-
dents might do well to study any of our four species keeping
this matter in view.

Paniassia Caroltniana, the one with which the writer is
acquainted, blooms at the time when the fringed gential is pre-
valent and the maidens' tresses (Spiraiifhes centita) fills the
air with its delicate fragrance. The species palustris occurs
also in Europe while P. asarifoUa is restricted to the high
mountains of Virginia and North Carolina.

This pretty genus seems to intensify the feeling one has
of the very heterogeneous character of the Saxifragaceae. It
includes shrubs like Rihes and PJnladclplius, herbs wdth soli-
tary flowers like Paniassia and others with definite panicles like
Heuchera and Saxifraga. However, unlike they may be in
special features, there is. queerly enough, something ever
designative about them. One rarely makes a mistake when,
at first glance he exclaims — Saxifragaceae!

Providence, R. I.

THE HISTORY AND FUTURE OF FORESTRY IN
THE UNITED STATES.

By Mary F, Haggerty.

IN primeval times, ages befOi"e the discovery of the Western
Hemisphere, there was but one forest on the American
Continent, extending from sea to sea over one third of all the
land. But during the glacial period when North America was
covered with ice as far south as the latitude of Cincinnati, all
the vegetation under and adjacent to this icy mantle was
killed, and though growth started again after the ice melted
and disappeared and though the land was once more occupied
by softwoods and hardwoods, the continent was no longer
covered by a stretch of continuous woodland. There were now
three main forests — the great eastern forest which embraced
all the land east of the Mississippi, and in some places much
west of it; the forest of the Rocky Mountain Region and the
smaller mountain ranges of the great basin ; and the Pacific
Coast Forest all of which united in the northern part of the
continent to form a subarctic forest belt.

In the eastern forest the trees grew up much the same as
before, but in the other forests were many diffrent species, due
no doubt to the changes in soil, in climate or in the nature of
the trees. On the Pacific Coast eighty different species of
coniferous trees were found while all the trees grew taller than
the eastern species, had thicker crowns and trunks, and grew
in belts along the slopes of the mountains, instead of in clust-
ers in ravines along the mountain sides. All of these three
forest areas formed what has been called the "Virgin Forest."

One of the most important factors in the life of a forest
is the reproductive power of its trees, dependent primarily on
the quantity of seeds which each tree produces. Though the
quantity is the first consideration there are so many more sig-
nificant ones, that a tree may bear numerous seeds, and yet
never reproduce itself. Among these considerations are first,

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 71

the quality of a seed for a part of every seed may be unsound,
and sometimes the larger part as in the case of the tulip tree;
second the difficulty of disseminating, particularly of heavy
seeds as walnut, etc.; tliird. the carrying of seeds to surround-
ings detrimental to successful germination, for instance seeds
requiring moist soil may lodge upon dry ground, etc. ; fourth,
the period before a tree can produce seed, as in the case of the
white oak. which does not produce any until it is forty years
old ; and fifth, the time elapsing between seed years — trees
bearing seeds only e\-ery three or four years according to spe-
cies, habitat, etc.

After a successful start seedlings often perish in the
flames of destructive fires, under the feet of grazing cattle or
in the litter of the forest floor, which their tender roots are un-
able to penetrate in their effort to gain the fertile soil beneath.
The infant tree, the result of a succssful seedling may decay
for want of proper light, watei or soil, for the trees in a forest
are engaged in a constant itruggle — tree against tree — for
these essentials and the tree that receives too little or too much
of any of them is bound to suffer if not to die. Each tree,
therefore, to gain these necessities in the proper proportions
adapts the manner of its growth and the shape of its branches
and leaves; and for this reason we never see two trees exactly
alike. However, it is advantageous for each tree at first, that
it may receive enough light, to effect by self pruning a bail
straight shaft, so that by dropping the lower branches it may
expend all its energy in the spreading of its head and trunk.

Even if a seedling does overcome the obstacles outlined
in the preceding paragraph, and develops into a healthy tree
with a broad straight trunk and full crown, the battle is not
yet won for there are still many enemies to conquer. We may
ask : What enemies has the forest ? And the answer is the
physical forces of nature, plants, animals and man. Nature,
in the form of wind, snow, ice, floods, landslides and lightning

78 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

uproots or breaks the trees leaving desirable places for fungi
and bacteria — the most harmful of all plants. Animals, such
as mice, gnaw the bark of young trees and kill them, birds eat
great quantities of seed; insects devour many parts of the tree;
and cattle trample upon seeds and pluck shoots. Man how-
ever, is the most formidable enemy of the forest for more dam-
age is done every year by fire and lumberers than by any other
cause. Practically every forest fire is the result of human
carelessness.

Notwithstanding the number of enemies the forest has,
and the losses thereby sustained, it remains one of the most
valuable gifts bestowed upon mankind. One of its missions is
the regulation of temperature. We find in large forested
areas a total absence of the scorching winds so common on our
treeless plains. That like large bodies of water, they lower
the average temperature of summer and raise that of winter
is more doubtful. They serve also as valuable windbreaks,
game preserves, and recreation grounds, services not to be
scorned.

Another function — perhaps the most important — is the
regulation of the water supply, and the prevention of floods
and torrents by the gradual feeding of springs and streams.
Owing to the shade of the forest and the spongy covering of
its floor, the water is hindered from evaporating or running
off as rapidly as it would on a barren stretch of land and thus
the forests aid in storing water which re-appears evenly and
continuously to stock streams, etc. The forests are also the
source of such products as wood alcohol, vanilla, turpentine,
rosin ; and of such industries, as cooperage, furniture making,
musical instruments, vehicle manufacture, agricultural imple-
ments, car building, railroad ties, telephone poles, and house
building and finishing. And as we think of the value of these
forest industries — they being second only to agriculture in the
United States, the question comes to our minds, can we afford

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 73

to neglect the source of such necessity, comfort, luxury, and
wealth? Let us seek our answer from our experience of the
past.

We shall begin with our ancestors, the settlers of this
continent, who were surrounded on all sides by the forest, and
who, regarding it as a constant menace destroyed it at every
turn. Much that they destroyed, however, w^as done in a per-
fectly legitimate way, for they did not dare to leave the forests
standing about their farms and villages for fear of
the danger of attacks from Indians and wild beasts. They
also needed to m.ake their homes, their articles of furniture and
their implements ; and required land for agriculture. We can-
not cast any blame on our ancestors, for thus destroying the
trees they regarded as dangerous, but we regret that the idea
passed from generation to generation and that it carried with
it as corallary the delusion that the supply was inexhastible.
It is clear that it w^as the abuse of the first idea that brought
us more quickly to the second, and to the stern realization that
our forests are far from inexhaustible.

The settlers first began to cut timber in the eastern states,
then along the great waterways, and in the center
of the country and finally in the more northern of
the southern states and in all these areas, only the
largest and best trees were cut, no provisions being
made to protect or reforest the land. At present we
are taking from our forests .ibout three and one-half times
as much wood as is added by new growth, and two-thirds of
all the timber cut is simply destroyed. On the average since
1870 forest fires have yearly cost $50,000,000 in timber and
50 lives. In this country we consume four times as much
lumber per capita, as England and three times, as much as
Germany. We produce about one-third as much timber as
might be grown by careful management. At this rate, and
considering the increasing amount of land taken for agricul-

74 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

ture, the remaining supply in our forests can last only thirty
years longer, when not only our exports must cease, but also
we shall not even have enough for home consumption. Think
what such a shortage would mean, and then ask yourself how
it can be prevented. There is but one way — by forestry. The
term forestry has a very indistinct meaning to the greater part
of the American public. ]\Iany of the people think that it is
something new on the continent because it has been treated
systematically and scientificalh only within the past few years.
However, thev are mistaken, for forestry in this countrv is not
new, it is as old as our human life. It does not have to be in-
troduced into the United States, but rather its methods must
be reformed. In the beginning, let us have a clear under-
standing of what forestry is. "It is not the science or natural
history of woodlands nor the science of preserving wood-
lands, nor the science of planting trees. It is a combination of
these three arts;"' it is the art of managing and utilizing for-
ests for the greater benefit of all the people concerned, both at
present and in the future, and its only end is usefulness. Its
principles are the same in every country and are based on nat-
ural laws, which are at work everywhere and at all times.
Thus, the original part of the whole sul)ject is largely the
problem of how to apply these laws to fit the local needs. We
turned t(j it about a score of years ago and have made great
progress, thanks to the lessons which we have drawn from the
experience of European countries.

All countries no matter what their differences in size,
climate, population, or industries, have turned to forestry at
some period of their development, and it is a curious fact, that
with but one exception— England the more advanced nations
have arrived first at the necessity of its use and proceeded far-
ther in its science. It is practiced with beneficial results in all
the countries of the world except China. Until recently our
own country ranked nearly with China in this respect, and it

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 75

still lags behind the progressive mo'dern nations in all that re-
lates to the protection, preservation and conservative use of
the forests.

Perhaps the scientific treatment of forestry has reached
its highest development in Germany where the problem of in-
creasing not only the forest output but also the profits has been
solved. The timber lands of Germany are three times better
in quality today than before forestry was introduced. In
France, the foresters have begun to create the difficult art of
controlling the floods of mountain currents, by planting trees.
That they have not finished their work is proved by the dis-
astrous floods of the past spring, which are said to have arisen
from the deforested areas. They have also removed the danger
of wandering sand dunes by fixing them in place, by means of
huge forests of pine, thus creating a property worth millions.
The advance of forestry, and the miethod's of forestry in the
republic of Switzerland are well worth our attention and imi-
tation, for they have developed a wonderful type of govern-
ment forest policy and demonstrated, beyond contradiction,
the great yield in woodi and money that forestry may bring if
applied steadily for a number of years. And so the strides
which forestry has been taking abroad could be exemplified in
all the European countries. In Australia, Italy, Norway, and
Sweden, it is well established as part of the national govern-
ment. Turkey, Greece, Spain and Portugal give attention to
their forests, while England, though she devotes little time to
the problems of forestry in her own country, has made great
progress in Canada, the Cape of Good Hope and British In-
dia. Indeed, in the last country in a little over thirty years,
she has created a service of wonderful merit and achievments.
What lessons can we learn fiom the success forestry has at-
tained abroad? Briefly these first, that forestry pays and
pays best where expense is not spared; second, that since it
takes so long to repair forest waste, immediate action is ne-

T6 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

cessary. Third, that private initiative is not sufficient to pre-
vent wastefuhiess, that the Government must interest itself in
forestry and forestry reforms, and fourth, that the prospects
for forestry in the United States are remarkably bright. W&
know success may be attained, because we ha\'e no ancient for-
est rights or property questiouj to settle, because we have the
experience — bitter in some cases — of other countries to guide
us and because our forests have no equal in variety and value
in the world. Are we then going to neglect these golden
opportunities or have we begun to take advantage of them?

[to be concluded.]

Dame's Violet. — Those who are familiar with the hand-
some cruciferous plant known as dame's violet (Hes peris) may
have wondered how a plant so very cress-like in appearance
could ever have been called a violet. The origin of this com-
mon name lies very far back in the history of plants. It was
given to the plant at a time when flowers were not clearly dis-
tinguished and when they were all classed as roses, lilies, violets
and the like. At the present day we are familiar with the fact
that many plants popularly called lilies are not really so, and
the same is true of roses. The word, violet once stood for a
certain type of flower and the looseness with which it was ap-
plied is seen in such names as dog-tooth violet and dame's
violet. The generic name, Epilohium, means violet on a pod
and must have been given through some such ancient concep-
tion of a violet as we have indicated since it is not violet-like
from a modern viewpoint. The color violet seems to have
been named after the word violet had been restricted to the
plants which now bear it. In the older view there is nothing
incogruous in the term yellow violet.

Wanted. — Short notes of interest to the general botanist
are always in demand for this department. Our readers are
invited to make this the place of publication for their shorter
l)otanical items. The magazine is issued as soon as possible
after the 15th of February, May, August and November.

Root Hair.s. — Ordinary plants absorb water from the
soil by means of their root-hairs — slender one-celled out-
growths from the region near the tip of the root. So nearly
universal is this that many people are under the impression
that all plants possess such structures. As a matter of fact
most water plants lack root hairs and even some land plants
such as some of the cone-bearers are without them. These lat-
ter are usually plants whose above-ground parts do not evapo-
rate moisture rapidly. Many plants which normally produce
root hairs, do not develop them if grown in water, but this is
not true of all land plants and even some species that normally
grow in water always bear root hairs.

Flowering of \\'isteria. — There seems to be consider-
able difference in the flowering qualities of different Wisteria
plants. Some produce an abundance of blooms while others
treated equally well fail to respond with flowers. Mr. Elwyn
Waller reports an old German gardener as saying that plants
made from layers or suckers of this vine will not flower, but
that flowering plants must come from seed, and asks for an
opinion. It is. however, unlikely that any hard and fast rule
can be laid down. In general the rules that apply to other
plants w^ould be applicable here. Any plant growing in rich
soil is likely to be less fruitful than when growing in poorer

78 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

ground. Moreover, a cutting taken from an old plant ought to
bloom sooner than a similar plant from seed. The horticultur-
ist sometimes hastens the fruiting of a young tree by grafting
a twig from some older tree upon it. It would seem, then,
that a layer from Wisteria should bloom sooner than a seed-
ling, but that the position in which it grows has considerable
effect.

Fertility of the Soil. — At first glance the fertility of
the soil does not seem to lie in the province of the botanist, but
the further investigation is pushed in this direction, the more
does it appear to be entirely botanical notwithstanding all the
fertilizers that the farmers still considers essential. There are
certain chemical elements necessary to any fertile soil, to be
sure, but given these no crops will grow without nitrates or
nitrogen in some form and since nitrogen does not exist natur-
ally in the soil, the supply must result from the action of bac-
teria. There is a large class of plants known as legumes, of
which the pea and bean are examples, which have formed part-
nerships with certain bacteria able to fix atmospheric nitrogen,
but the nitrogen used by other plants comes from the oxida-
tion of ammonia and other organic compounds of nitrogen ad-
ded to the soil. This oxidation is caused by bacteria, which,
most people do not need to be told, are plants. But even these
atoms have their enemies which must be overcome before they
can do their best work. It has recently been discovered that
there are immense numbers of one-celled, microscopic animals
known as protozoa in the soil and these spend their time de-
vouring the helpful bacteria. The problem is to make away
with these harmful protozoa. Experiment has proven that
this can be accomplished by baking the soil, pouring boiling
water upon it, or even by treating it with chloroform or car-
bon disulphide. Most of the protozoa are killed by these pro-
cesses and large numbers of the bacteria also, but the latter
soon increase again and then number seven or eight times as

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 79

many as at first. Thus is another practice of the cultivator
placed on a foundation of scientific fact. It has long- been
known that soil may be rendered fertile by heating, but the
reason has only just come to light.

Parasitic Plants. — According to Dr. D. T. McDougal,
nearly twenty-five hund'red species of parasitic seed-plants are
known and if it were possible to discover all the species that are
partial parasites feeding on the roots of other plants below
ground it is certain that the total would he much larger.
Among the changes that take place in a plant when it becomes
even a partial parasite are a lack of differentiation of the
tissues even in the seed and embryo, a lessened development of
the shoot and root, a reduction of the leaf surface and dimin-
ished production of chlorophyll. If with the parasitic plants
we include those which form partnerships with various fungi,
and so are not entirely independent, the group would comprise
about half of all the flowering plants in the world.

Fungi Named Free. — Most wanderers through the au-
tumn woods constantly come upon strange forms of fungi
clustered on decaying logs, projecting shelf-like from dead and
decayed trees or springing from the old leaves on the forest
floor. Most of these make good specimens by simply drying
in some sheltered place and now that flowers are fast disap-
pearing, form good subjects for further study. It is seldom
that the novice in such studies can find a scientist willing to
carefully identify ex'en the commonest species, but such a for-
tuitous condition exists with reference to this group. All that
is necessary is to collect several good specimens of each kind,
dry them and after retaining a good specimen of each, send the
rest to C. G. Lloyd. 309 West Court Street, Cincinnati. Give
each specimen a number and Mr. Lloyd will report the name of
each by return mail. Do not send toadstools; only woody
fungi.

80 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

Abnormal Nelumbo Stamen. — We have received from
Mr. Wm. Bembower, an abnormal stamen of the yellow lotus
(Nelumbo lutea) which he found while examining some
flowers of this species recently. In this, the anther, instead of
being tipped with a curved projection as is usual ends in two
rounded lobes. Whether this is an abortive attempt at a petal,
or whether it is simply a slip in stamen making it would be
hard to say. In the closely allied white water lily and yellow
pond lily transition forms of stamens are numerous and it is
likely that the specimen under discussion has a similar his-
tory. In the breeding of double flowers by the gardner, some
slight abnormality of this kind is selected and by careful
handling may produce the desired form.

The Caltrop in Illinois. — During the first week in
September the editor found several specimens of the caltrop
(Tribidus terrestris) on a railway embankment that borders
the Desplaines river at Joliet. This appears to be a very rare
plant in America. It is a native of the Old World and only
during the last half century has it been known in this country.
It was first found on ballast ground near the sea-coast, and
later appeared in Nebraska, whither it had evidently been car-
ried in some immigrant's baggage. A few years ago it was
reported from Illinois, probabl}' at Chicago, though the exact
station does not seem to be known. The Joliet locality is the
third inland station thus far known for the plant. Although
it is to be regarded as a mere weed, considerable interest at-
taches to the plant from the form of its fruits. Each section
of the five-parted fruit ends in two spreading points, and when
one of the segments fails to develop, as is frequently the case,
the resemblance to a maltese cross is very striking. Those
who named the plant, however, were impressed by its resem-
blance to other and less pleasant objects. Its common name
of caltrop refers to those ingenious implements of warfare of
the same name, said to have been invented by the Romans,

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 81

wliich were so arranged that no matter how thrown on the
ground one or more spikes projected upward to bother pursu-
ing horsemen when an army was in retreat. Tlie Latin name
for this implement was fribulus which suggests some of the
tribulation it must have caused and has appropriately been
taken as the name of the genus. A further and better illustra-
tion of the use of the name, tribulus. is found in the specific
name for the sand bur (Cenclirus tribuhi'Jcs) . The well-
known fruit of this species is a miniature tribulus and to this
day bothers the barefoot boy much more than the contrivance
for which it was named ever could have troubled the tribes
which warred on Rome.

Double Sunflowers. — Two separate and distinct ideas
are embodied in our conception of double flow'ers. In the
commoner instance a double flower contains more than the us-
ual number of petals due either to the transformation of sta-
mens or of some other part, or to the splitting of the initial
mass of cells designed to become a petal. It would, however,
be just as rational to call a flower with more than the usu'd
number of stamens a double flower, the point is that some or-
gan of the flower has been multiplied. This however, is not
true of the second phase of what we call doubling and which is
well illustrated by double daisies, double sunflowers and the
like. Here no additional parts are found. Such doubling con-
sists simply in a more luxuriant development of isome of the
corollas in the flower head. The flowers mentioned all have
ligulate corollas in the outer circles and our doubling is simply
due to the fact that more of the regular corollas have become
irregular and ligulate. If this is really doubling, the dandelion
is one of the best naturally double ''flowers" we have. The
cause of the increase and change in the corollas of composite
flowers is not easy to discover. The parent of the well-known
garden plant "golden glow" grows along thousands of miles of
streams and in countless swanips, and shows little tendency to

82 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

vary. Siuldenly, however, one plant sported and an apprecia-
tive cultivator s])ie(l it and th^ garden ])lant was the result.
Doul)le flowers in this sense are found in nearly all the culti-
vated composites. The tendency to "doul)le"' seems to he very
strong in the wild sunflowers. After a year or so of cultiva-
tion one begins to find many half double and double specimens.
In the editor's garden a number of these forms have occurred
the past season and we look forward to another summer with
some curiositv as to what may be expected from them.

Birds and Berries. — If asked to name the shrub upon
whose berries the greatest number of birds feed, one w^ould
scarcely think of mentioning the elder (Sainbiiciis) and yet. ac-
cording to the last year book of the Department of Agricul-
ture, no less than sixty-seven different species of birds are
known to eat the fruits of this plant. Raspberries come next
with GO species of bird visitors and then come mulberries, dog-
woods, sumachs, wild cherries and blueberries. That such
fruits should form the principal diet of frugiverous birds is not
surprising but we who have tasted many of the other fruits
listed on the birds' bill of fare can be sure that the opinions of
man and bird as to what is palatable do not coincide for we
find among other fruits eaten china berries (Mclia), buckthorn
{Rhamus), Manzanita (Arctostaphylos), Christmas berry
{Hetcromclcs), pepper tree (Schinus), snow berry (Syiii-
pliovicarpos) , sour gum {Nyssa), holly (lies), spicebush
(Bciirjoiii), juniper { Juuipcnis) , Virginia creeper [Aiiipcli)/^-
sis) and pokeberries {Phytolacca). This information is
brought out in an article on plants useful to attract the birds.
There are lists of the most desirable plants for this purpose for
different parts of the country. Those who have extensive
grounds and wish to attract the birrls should be able, by proper
selection of shrubs and trees to be surrounded by birds with-
out lessening in any way the appearance of the decorative
planting.

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 83

Legumes. — The words legume and leguminosae have
very definite meanings in our day, but at the time that the
present meanings were crystaHizing about the words it miglit
have been quite proper to call an apple or a gooseberry a
legume. The word is from the Latin legcre meaning to gather
and was long ago applied to various cultivated plants whose
fruit was gathere'd, to distinguish them from those others
which were cut down and the desired parts beaten out. Wheat
and barley were of course not legumes, because the fruits
were not gathered by hand, but beans, peas, lupines and the
like, which were taken from the plants in the field, were known
by this term. It is doubtless due to the fact that plants with
pods predominated in the gathered crops, that the word le-
gume has at last come to stand only for plants bearing pods,
and to give the name to one of the most useful and handsome
of plant families.

Contents of Seeds. — A seed is sometimes defined as a
young plant enclosed in a hard outer covering often with more
or less albumen or food. For most plants this definition would
hold good. In the common bean, for example, we find at
maturity a slender axis, which is destined to be the beginning
stem, to which are attached one or more cotyledons and other
rudimentary leaves. But this is not always the case. In
some plants, such as many Ranunculaceae, when the seeds are
ripe, that is, when they are ready to fall from the plant, the
plantlet that should be within is represented merely by a mass
of undifferentiated cells, and in other plants there are all gra-
dations of this up to complete embryos. In those seeds in
which the embryo is not well developed, when the seed is ripe,
the young plantlet continues to develop while the seed is dor-
mant. One of the extreme cases is found in the maidenhair
tree or ginkgo where the fertilization necessary to begin the
embryo plant does not take place until the seed has fallen from

84 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

the parent tree. It i<. w ell-ki'.dwii that inaiu' seeds will not
grow as soon as they are "ripe," and the facts noted above no
doubt account for it.

A Changeable Phlox. — The editor has had growing 'n
his grounds, the past summer, a s])ecimen of phlox possessing
the peculiarit}- of changing color according to the hour of the
day. In the early morning and at sunset, it is bhiish purple
and at mid-da}' it is a decided ])ink. ddiis is a real color
change and not due to the amount of light. There are many
species of tlowers known tliat change color as the age of the
bloom changes, such as the white trillium whicli turns rose
colored as it begins to wane, but flowers are rare that change
back to the original color again after the first change is made.
The behavior of the phlox mentioned is such as to suggest the
action of litmus pa]ier when transferred from an acid to an
alkaline medium. I'ossiljly the changes in the flowers mav be
explained in much the same way. Many plants with pink buds
open blue flowers due to the fact that the sap of the buds is
acid and that of the flowers is alkaline. It is likely that the
activities of our phlox may change the nature of tlie sap in
some way from hour to hour and thus cause the change in
color.

Japanese Am I^lant. During the winter one may

often find in the fl(M-ist's shops certain bright green featherv
sprays that are very ferndike or moss-like in appearance and
go by the name of Japanscse air plants or air ferns. Investi-
gation shows, however, that instead of being either ferns or
mosses, they do not even belong to the plant kingdom. They
are really colonies of sertularian hydroids — small .sea animals
allied to the corals and jelly li>hes — which, like the corals,
Imild up a common structure lo which the indi\-idual members
are attached. There are a great many different species of these
hydroids in the shallow places near the seashore and they are

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 85

often washed u\) by tlie waves and gathered as sea weeds by
the uninitiated. Tt has sometimes been reported that the
Japanese air plant is a sea-wetd of the genus Demurest ia, but
it is certain that the bulk, if not all, of the specimens offered
for sale are not sea-weeds. Possibly a variety of sea products
are used in this way. The specimens are dried and then dyed
a bright green, and ni course do not grow, though many peo-
ple will be found to assert that they do. ^^'e are indebted to
Dr. E. F. Bigelow, for the itlentity of the specimens.

Chemicals Excreted by Plants. — Since plants cannot
select the minerals composing the soils in which they grow, it
must often happen that there enters the plant along wdth more
useful substances, a number of useless or even harmful
minerals. Or it may be that the plant, in forming some neces-
sary product, will have left over as a by-product, more or less
chemical matters that must be disposed of. These are taken
care of in various ways. Sometimes they are formed into
crystals and stowed away in the cells of the leaf, or they may
be isolated in the bark, the wood or in the latex of the plant.
Some few plants have the facult_\- of excreting some of these
substances which may be found as incrustations on the surface
of the leaves. Various species of the sword fern (Nephro-
Icpis) excrete lime at the tips of the veins, and A. B. Klugh
reports in Rhodora the excretion of salt b)^ a salt meadow
grass — Spartiua glabra alterniflora. Whether such excre-
tions are of benefit to the plants is still a Cjuestion. Some
botanists are of the opinion that they may aid the plant in se-
curing" water from the air under certain conditions.

(J.^ — ^

; ^SCHOOL BOTANY ^^

Practical Botany. — The matter of botanical instruc-
tion in all schools is to a large extent a matter of fashion, and
the fashion is usually set by the larger universities where no at-
tempt is made to give botany an industrial trend. There has
been developed a splendid lot of texts on morphology, em-
bryology, systematic botany, physiology, etc., but none of this
material has been presented in its agricultural bearing, and
consequently the field of botany in agriculture has not been
clear. At the present time it has neither direction nor agres-
siveness. What we really need to work on is the science of the
breeder's art and the science of the gardener's art. At present
the art is far in advance of the science. In fields where the
agriculture art was not highly developed — notably pathology
and bacteriology — the botanist has accompHshed great things.
If we pursue agriculture or ai.y phase of it without devoting
our science to it we can become at most expert farmers.
By devoting our science to agriculture and having faith in its
potency no man can fortell '.he outcome. — C. V. Piper in
Science.

Storing Facts. — Go to the nearest printer or paper
dealer and get a supply of manilla slips cut somewhat smaller
than a postal card. Place these where they wil be readily ac-
cessible when you are reading and when you chance upon a
fact that may later be useful to you jot it down then and there.
Give the note a title on the top line that shall indicate its con-
tents, add at the bottom the title and page of the volume or
magazine from which it was taken and file away for future

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 87

reference, ^^1len any subject comes up. upon which you want
the latest facts run through your notes and you have them.
Cards are better than a note-book for the reason that they can
be sorted out into subjects at five minutes notice. Those who
desire a more elaborate system can get ruled index cards at the
nearest book store, but the manilla cards are ([uite good
enough. No teacher is so well informed that he can afford to
stop acquiring information about his special subjects, nor can
I'le depend upon his memory to retain everything of value he
reads.

High School Text-books. — A second evidence of our
confidence in systems is found in the easy insouciance witli
which university professors proceed to write text-books for
high schools. The only qualification the most of them have
therefor is a knowledge of their subject, and they seem to re-
gard any personal acquaintance with the peculiarities of young-
people and with the special conditions of high school work as
comparatively negligible. In consecjuence. these books are
necessarily addressed to some kind of idealized student, us-
uallv a bright-eved indi\i(lual thirsting for knowledge. This
kind does exist but in minority, whereas the real student with
which the high school must deal is one of a great mass willing
to learn if it must. Confirmation of the correctness of my view
that knowledge of students is as important as knowledge of the
subject for the writing of a high school book is found in the
fact that the author of the botanical text-books, most widely
used in the high schools of this country has had only a high
school experience. Another phase of our belief in the suffi-
ciency of systems is found In the utterly impracticable char-
acter of many of our books. These recommendations have
obviously been worked (jut in tlie comfort of the study chair
and have never been actually tested in use by their suggestors;

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

yet they are presented in a way to make the student feel that
he is either negHgent or stupid if he fails to work them.
These theoretically constructed schemes for elementary teach-
ing and these recommendations of untried and impracticable
tasks for students sometimes run riot in company with sweep-
ing denunciations of our present laboratory courses and sug-
gestions for their replacement by hypothetical field courses
utterly regardless of the fact that the former, whatever their
faults, have been evolved in actual administrative adaptation
to the real conditions of elementary work while the proposed
substitutes are wholly untried and in the light of existing con-
ditions wholly impracticable. — Prof. W. F. Ganong, in
Science.

KEY TO THE POLYPETALOUS DICOTYLEDONES*

1 Shrubs, trees or woody vines. (2).

2 Stamens more than twice the number of petals (8).
o Leaves opposite (4).

4 Stamens on the receptacle
4 Stamens on the calyx

Ovaries several, distinct, enclosed
Ovaries compound
Free from the calyx
,\dherent to the calyx

^ Leaves alternate. (.5).

5 Stamens on the calyx tube
Fleshy plants
Plants not fleshy

5 Stamens on the receptacle (fi')
Petals convolute in bud
6 Petals imbricate or valvate in bud (7)
T Ovaries compound

Sepals valvate ; flowers small
Sepals imbricate ; flowers large

7 Ovary or ovaries distinct and simple
Petals six, valvate in bud
Petals, three to nine, imbricate
Climbing vines
Trees or shrubs
Leaves simple
Leaves pinnate

riypericaceae. (G. Ttl\. B. 024)

Calycanthaceac. (G. 409. P.. 48.-))

Lythraceae. (C. .591. B. f548)

Saxifragaceae. (G. 444. B. 484)

Cactaceae. (G. 588. B. 64.'?)

Rosaceae. (G. 4.54. B. 490)

Malvaceae. (G. .5W;. B. f!17)

Tiliaceae. (G. .56.5. B. 616)

Ternstromiaceae. (G. 570. B. 32.3)

Anonaceae. (G. 410. B. 410)

Menispermaceae. (G. 410. B. 434)

Magnoliaceae. (G. 408. B. 409)

Mimosaceae. (G. 500. B. .527)

*'rhe numbers in parenthesis refer to the pages in Gray's and Britton's ALnnnnls re-
spectively. For keys to other groups, see earlier issues.

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

tainens not more than twice the number of petals (8)
8 Carpels one or more, distinct
Carpels 2 to 6
Climbing vine
Tree ; leaves pinnate
Carpels one

Flowers six parted
Flower five parted

8 Carpels united. (9)

9 Adherent to the calyx (10)
10 Flowers four-parted
Stamens eight
Stamens four

10 Flower five-parted

Carpels five, s.tyles five
Carpels two

Leaves palmately veined
Leaves pinnately veined

Menispermaceae. ( G. 410. B. 434)
Simarubaceae. (G. 538. B. 582)

Berberidaceae. (G. 411. B, 432)
Leguminosae. (G. 500. B. 528)

Onagraceae. (G. 594. B. 651)

Cornaceae. (G. 623. B. 689)

Araliaceae. (G. 60.5. B. 667)

Grossulariaceae. (G. 444. B. 486)

Saxifragaceae. (G. 444. B. 484)

9 Ovary free from the calyx or nearly so (11)

11 Stamens opposite the petals and of same number

Leaves opposite. Plants with tendrils Vitaceae.

Leaves alternate. No tendrils Rhamnaceae,

11 Stamens alternate with petals or difterent in number (12)

12 Leaves opposite (13)

13 Carpels one or two

Style one Oleaceae

Styles two Aceraceae.

13 Carpels three to five

Leaves simple Celastraceae. (G. 556. B. 605)

Leaves pinnate

Fruit not inflated Sapindaceae.

Fruit inflated Staphyleaceae.

(G. 562.
(G. 560.

(G. 650.
(G. 557.

(G. 559.
(G. 557.

B. 613)
B. 611)

B. 723)
B. 607)

B. 6U9)
B. 606)

12 Leaves alternate (14)
14 Compound

Ovary one-seeded
Ovary more than one-seeded
Ovary three-seeded
Ovary two-seeded

14 Simple (15)

15 Fruit drupe-like
One-seeded
Four to six-seeded

15 Fruit dry

Seeds with an aril

Seeds not arilled

Ovary two-celled, two seeded
Ovary three-celled, many seeds

Anacardiaceae. (G. 552. B. 599)

Sapindaceae. (G. 5.59. B. 609)
Rutaceae. (G. 537. B. 581)

Anacardiaceae. (G. 552. B. 599)

Aquifoliaceae. (G. 554. B. 602)

Celastraceae. (G. 556. B. 605)

Hamamelidaceae. (G. 452. B. 488)

Ericaceae. (G. 626. B. 692)

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

1 Herbaceous plants (10)

16 Leaves opposite (17)

17 Stamens more than twice the niniiher of petals

Pistils many, distinct, simple Ranunculaceae. (G. 302

Pistils three to five somewhat united Ilypericaceae. (G. 570.

17 Stamens not more than twice the numljer of petals (18)
IS Pistils one or several separate, simple

Pistils one, petals six to nine Berberidaceae. (G. 411.

Pistils more than one

Pistils two ; juice milky Asclepiadaceae. (G. (]f>3. B. 740)

B. 411)
B. 624)

B. 432)

Pistils three or more

18 Pistils united (10)

19 Ovary adherent to tlie calyx (20)
20 Carpels as many as sepals

Anthers opening down the side
Antliers opening at apex

Crassvilaceae. (G. 441. B. 473)

Onagraceae. (G. 594. B. 051)
Melastomaceac. (G. 593. B. 650)

20 Carpels fewer than sepals

Ovary many s«eded ; styles two
Ovary one-seeded
Styles two or three
Style one
10()vary free from the calyx (21)

21 Stamens as many as petals and opposite them
Style and stigma, one
Style one ; stigma three-cleft
21 Stamens alternate or of different number
22 Leaves toothed or lobed

Flowers four-parted ; stamens six
Flowers five-parted; stamens ten

22 Leaves entire

Petals and stamens on the calyx
Petals and stamens on the receptacle
Flowers irregular
Flowers regular

Two or three-parted
I'ive-parted

Leaves dotted
Leaves without dots

16 Leaves alternate or plants acaulescent (23)

23 Stamens more than twice the nunibei of petals (24)
24 Stamens on the receptacle (25)

25 Carpels several, distinct or unitfd at
Leaves not peltate
Some or all of the leaves jieltate
25 Carpls united (20)

2() Petals numerous, sepals four to six
26 Petals four to eiglit (27)
27 Petals five only

Convolute in bud: sepals five v
Imbricate in bud

Sepals live, leaves tubular
Sepals two

Saxifragaceae. (G. 444. B. 484)

Araliaceae.

(G.

605.

667)

Cornaceae.

(G.

023.

089)

them

Primulaceae.

(G.

043.

713)

I'ortulacaceae.

(G.

387.

384)

from petals (22)

Cruciferae

. (G.

418.

443)

Geraniaceae.

(G.

534.

572)

Lythraceae.

(G.

591.

648)

Polygalaceae.

(G.

538.

582)

Flatinaccae.

(G.

575.

(!20)

Hypericaceae.

(G.

392.

411)

Caryophyllaceae.

(G.

377.

387)

ase only

Ranunculaceae.

(G.

392.

411)

Nymphaceae.

(G.

389.

400)

-Xymphaceae

. (G.

, 389.

4(J0)

;qual Cistaceae.

(G.

570.

030)

Sarraceniaceae.

(G.

439.

409)

Portulacaceae.

(G.

387.

384)

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

27 Petals four, six or eight
Flowers borne singly
Flowers in racemes and spikes

24 Stamens not on the receptacle

On the corolla, stamens forming a tube
On the calyx
Sepals two
Sepals three to five

Petals imbricated; fruit simple
Petals convolute ; fruit compressed

Papaveraceae. (G. 414. B. 437)

Resedaceae. (G. 439. B. 4«9)

Malvaceae. (G. 566. B. G17)

Portulacaceae. (G. 387. B. 384)

Rosaceae. (G. 4.54. B. 490)

Loasaceae. (G. 588. B. 641)

23 Stamens not more than twice the number of petals (28)

28 Ovary adherent to the calyx (29)
29 Style one, carpels two to six
29 Styles more than one
Styles two

Carpels two ; seeds several
Carpels two, seeds two

Styles three to five or more.
Ovary one-celled, sepals two

Onagraceae. (G. ."504. B. 651)

Saxifragaceae. (G. 444. B.
Umbelliferae. (G. 607. B.

Portulacaceae. (G. 387. B.
Ovary three to five celled. Sepals five. Araliaceae. (G. 605. B.

28 Ovary free from the calyx (30)
30 Pistils simple, distinct
Five or more

Stamens once or twice the number of petals

Crassulaceae. (G. 441
Stamens more numerous
Pistils one only.

Stamens united into a tube
Stamens not united
Stamens five
Stamens more than five
Once or twice the number of petals

Berberidaceae. (G. 411. B.

476)
669)

384)
667)

Ranunculaceae. (G. 392. B.

Leguniinosae. (G. 500. B.
VIolaceae. (G. 579. B.

More numerous

Ranunculaceae. (G. 392. B.

Oxalidaceae. (G. 532.
Linaceae. (G. 532.

B.
B.

30 Pistil compound

Four or five-celled
Juice sour
Juice not sour

Less than four-celled.
Two-celled.

Stamens six, tetradynamous Cruciferae. (G. 418. B

Stamens four to eight, equal. Polygalaceae(G. 538. B
One-celled.

Stamens four to thirty-two, separate.

Capparadaceae. (G. 438. B.
Stamens six or less.

Stamens six, diadelphous Fumariaceae. G. 416. B

Stamens five; styles 3 to 5 Droseraceae. (G. 440. B

473)
411)

532)

633)

432)
411)

575)
578)

443)

582)

467)

437)
470)

C7=—^ EDITORIAL y7=—=o

It seems al)i»ul lime that botanists in general were again
stirred np regarding contrilniting to this magazine. It is sur-
])rising what a lot of good people there are who think that the
only article worth reading is ,'ome extended affair that takes
up half the pages of the publicati(~in. 'Jdiey estimate the worth
of an article strictly according to its length, hut it would be
just as logical to value our friends in the same way. We have
no objection to longer articles when they bear upon subjects
in \\hich we are interested, but at this time we wish to make a
plea for the less extended items. Some time ago. we endeavor-
ed to ascertain the views of our readers in regard to the most
desirable kind of article to print, and the replies were over-
whelmingly in fa\-or of the short notes. Not a few people,
however, seem to have a vague idea that such notes are some-
how beneath their dignity, but this idea may be dismissed.
There is doubtless not a reader of this magazine who, in the
course of a single summer, does not see many things worthy of
record. Anything about plants that is of enough interest to
n]enti(-)n to your friends wonld certainly interest a larger
audience. We are well aware tliat the field occupied by this
magazine is a peculiar one, and that students of the topics it
treats of are none tou abundant, but this ])hase of botany is
most vigorous at present and bids fair to be \er}- prominent in
future, and we hope to brin^ out more obserwations along
these lines. To thoroughly enjoy economic and ecological
botany requires a considerable knowledge of plants in the
field and as a result our readers are all thoughtful, well-in-
formed people — a class from which we ought to exi)ect a
large number of such ol)ser\a!ions as we have indicated. Now
that the long evenings indoors are at hand, we hope to find a
large increase in such communications.

BOOKS AND WRITERS.

Upwards of a hundred muslirooms, piiffballs and the hke
are treated in the "Guide to ]\Iushrooms" by Emma L. Taylor
Cole, published by Doubleday, Page & Co. As a collection of
careful descriptions of mushroom species, the book has much
in it to recommend, but as a guide for the inexperienced we
fear the book is likely to be a fiat failure. There is no key of
anv kind, and though the species treated are the more familiar
kinds, there are so many others that resemble them that the
beofinner is never likelv to feel certain and if he does, a fairlv
long list of deadly poisonous species lie in wait for the over
confident. Wt advise beginners not to place too much de-
pendence upon this guide. The book, however, is a handy
little volume easily carried into the field. It is illustrated with
four colored plates and many photographs, scarcely a page of
text being without its illustration. In addition to accurate
descriptions, the edible or poisonous qualities are discussed and
the habitats of the plants given. Notes are also included on
collecting and cooking the various species. The price of the
book is $1.00 net.

We have heard a good deal in recent years, about popu-
lar handbooks of the wildflowers but most of them have turned
ut to be pre-digested scientific treatises designed fin- the
popular taste. Now at last comes a really popular book — one
that is written from the public's view-point, at least — though
whether it will be any more popular than the others remains
to be seen. In "W'ildfiowers East of the Rockies" Ity Chester
A. Reed we have a volume that does not even pretend to de-
scribe the plants in scientific jargon. The descriptions are such
as we might expect from the farmer or man of affairs who
having found a strange plant mentions its noticeable features
in order to have it nametl. And these descriptions really de-
scribe, mentioning a hundred and one characteristics of the

94 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

plants that the strict botanist never indicates if indeed lie
knows them. Even the older student of plants may find much
of interest in a perusal of its pages though familiar with the
flowers it describes. The plants are arranged in the most
modem sequence and tlie great majority are illustrated. The
illustrations, however, are distinctly inferior to the text. For
the most part they are correct as to outline but very faultily
colored. Doubtless they are near enough to the likeness of
the plants to aid in identification. There is but one key and
this is based on color, and not very accurate withal. As the
plants are not arranged according to color the beginner may
find some difficulty in using it. It will do him no harm, how-
ever, to read the book straight through. There are more than
400 16-mo. pages in the volume wdiich is priced at $2.50 net.
It is issued by Doubleday Page Sz Co., New York.

Among the Russell Sage Foundation publications issued
by the Charities Publication Committee of New York is a re-
cent volume by Dr. M. Louise Greene entitled "Among School
Gardens" that will interest all teachers who have garden mak-
ing included in their list of subjects to be considered. It nni
only discusses school gardens in general, but gives directions
for garden making that ought to be of service to the novice in
this kind of work. A most stimulating part of the book is
tlic account of what has been accomplished in sch(~>ol garden
work throughout the United States and Canada. It is an en-
couraging sign of the return to sanity in educational matters
that the attention of the children is being directed to the world
we live in and some familiarity with animals and plants sub-
stituted for the overload of foreign languages under which
most high school pupils are still staggering. The book
abounds in illustrations of actual gardens and their happy
owners and thus adds another inspiration to continue the good
work. The book is sent postpaid for $1.25.

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 95

Grace Tabor and Gardne*^ "feall sa}- in tlie preface to their
interesting' little "Garden Primer" that it is designed to set
forth in the most direct forni. bnt withont technicalities the
fundamental princi])les of amateur gardening in America."
A look at tlie book shows that they have done even more; for
they ha\-e set forth the facts in most charming form and made
a book that will interest anyone beginning to garden. So
far as we ha\e discerned nothing of importance has been
omitted that the gardener needs to know. A chapter is de-
voted to each phrase of the sul)iect and there are planting
tables, spraying tables and a gardener's kalendar wherein one
finds hints regarding the work necessary each month. The
book is illustrated by photographs and is published by Mc-
Bride, Winston & Co., at $1.00.

\Adiat Prof. L. H. Bailev has to say regarding matters
horticultural is always of interest to a wide circle of readers
both amateur and professional. For years "Garden Making"
and the "Practical Garden P^ook" have serx'ed as standards for
tillers of the soil, and now we have "A Manual of Gardening"
which seems to be a combination of the two earlier works de-
signed "as a practical guide ro the making of home grounds
and the growing of flowers, fruits and vegetables for home
use." The 1)()ok has a certain familiar appearance about it due
to the use of illustrations from the other books, and to a simi-
larity of treatment in the text. As would be expected the
author adxocates the "natural" manner of planting the home
grounds, and l)elieves in the use of our own wild plants for
decorations, though attention is also given to carpet bedding
and other formal planting. I'he latter half of the book is de-
voted to useful information regarding the growing of the
plants in lawn garden and the house. The sensible and re-
freshing way in which the author discusses each subject
makes the reading attractive while the information conveyed

96 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

is that which every up-to-date gardner must possess. The
book contains more than 500 pages and costs $2.00 net. It
is published by MacMillan's.

"Agriculture Through the Laboratory and School Gar-
den" by Jackson and Daugherty is not a new book, having
appeared first in 1905 but that it continues to be a popular text
for school courses in agriculture is attested by the appearance
of a second edition recently. The book is logical in expecting
the student to find out things for himself and carefully worked
out directions for experiment are scattered plentifully through
the book while the text discusses the subject in general. Ad-
ded to the matter of a purely agricultural nature is consider-
able material on milk and its care, farm animals, principles of
feeding and the like. Following each chapter are references
to other works bearing on the subjects. The book will be very
useful to young teachers as it wastes no space in mere words.
The experimental work will be most helpful. The book is pub-
lished by the Orange Judd Company and costs $1.50.

The Cultivation of Fungi. — In America the only at-
tempt at cultivating edible fungi seems to have been directed to-
w^ard growing the familiar mushroom. In the Old World,
however, more attention is given to growing other species.
According to Scientific American the black truffle {Tuber
melanosponnn ) is successfully propogated by grinding up ripe
specimens with water into a paste which is spread on green
hazel or oak leaves and buried in the oak forests. Similar re-
sults attended the planting of the craterelle {Craterellns nri-
cleatus). It would seem highl\ desirable tliat experiments be
started in this country with a view to producing such fungi as
the shaggy mane mushroom (Coprinus comatus) and various
pufif-balls, especially the giant puff-ball (Calvatia gigantea).
The puff-balls keep well, are in good condition for a long time
and afford a large amount of palatable food.

THE BEST WORKS ON FERN5

OUR FERNS IN THEIR HAUNTS, by V/illard N. Clute. Octavo, 3SS
pages. 225 illustrations. Eight colored plates. Contains the only il-
lustrated key ever published, and a full account of all the fcma of
Eastern America. The species can be identified by the illustrationa,
alone. More copies of this book are sold annually than of any other.
Price post paid, $2.15.

THE FERN ALLIES OF NORTH AMERICA, by Willard N. Clute.
Octavo, 250 pages, 150 illustrations, eight colored plates. A companion
volume to "Our Ferns in Their Haunts", containing a full account of the
scouring rushes, club-mosses, quillworts, selagincUas, water-ferns, etc,
etc., in North America. Seven keys to the species. A check list with
synonyms. The only book on the subject in the English language.
Listed in the New York State Library list among The Best Books of
1905. Price post paid, $2.15.

SPECIAL OFFERS

Either volume and a year's subscription to American Botanist $2.50

Either volume and a full set of American Botanist, (16 volumes) .. 10.00

Both volumes to one address 4.00

Both volumes and a year's subscript-ion to American Botanist 4.50

Both volumes and a full set of American Botanist, (16 volumes) 11.50

Address all orders to

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Methods in. Moss Study

Price $1.25

Of the several books which I have written, none
appear to be better appreciated by tl)e public than
this little book on Mosses, which is intended as a
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60 YEARS'
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Milpitas, Santa Clara Co., California

Laboratory Manual of Botany

FOR THE HIGH SCHOOL

BY WILLARD N. CLUTE

The leading characteristics of this new and in many ways unique laboratory
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Price complete as described above $4.00

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VOLUME J6, NUMBER 4 WHOLE NUMBER 87

NOVEMBER, J 9 10

The AMERICAN
BOTANIST

CENTS

A
COPY

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YEAR

CONTENTS

SOME TREES OF THE CALIFORNIA

DESERTS 97

By Charles Francis Saunders.

ECCENTRICITIES OF DISTRIBU-
TION 100

By Dr. W. W. Bailey.

THE HISTORY AND FUTURE OF
FORESTRY IN THE UNITED
STATES 102

By Mary F. Haggerty.

NOTE AND COMMENT - - - 109

SCHOOL BOTANY 117

EDITORIAL 122

BOOKS AND WRITERS - - - 124

WILLARD N. CLUTE & CO.

lOLIET, nXINOIS

75he AmericaiY Botanist

A QUARTERLY DEVOTED TO ECOLOGICAL AND ECONOMIC BOTANY

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The American Botanist

VOL. XVI

JOLIET, ILL., NOVEMBER, 1910

No. 4

"*!J look alofiff t/ie dusti/, dpeary ivai/.

So lately stneivn ivith blossoms, fres/i and gay,

^he sweet procession of the yean is past,
y^nd ivithened, iv/iirling leaves run rattling fast
Qike throngs of tatter d beggars, following
yVhere late went by the pageant of a liing."

— Kemble.

SOME TREES OF THE CALIFORNIA DESERTS.

By Charles Francis Saunders.

ONE of the paradoxes of life in Southern CaHfornia is the
fact that the finest firewood is obtained from the desert.
This is mesquite, a superlatively good wood, the sticks often a
foot or more in diameter — solid, honest fuel through and
through, slow burning like lump coal and leaving very little
ash. That it retails in Pasadena at $15 to $17 per cord is un-
impeachable evidence of its worth.

Few facts strike the visitor to the western rim of our con-
tinent more forcibly than this fact that the desert produces any-
thing of worth, and especially that trees grow upon it. Yet
the tree lover finds very interesting material awaiting him on
these arid stretches, which in California, are known as the
Mojave and the Colorado Deserts. The latter, so-called be-
cause the Colorado River skirts its eastern border, is the prin-
cipal home of the mesquite within the state. This is a low,
widely branching tree, sometimes half buried in drifting
dunes, so that only the upper limbs and feathery foliage are
visible. At times two or three old trees are found growing so

F3CTANiC.

98 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

near one another that their branches intermingle and as these
are armed with formidable thorns the result is a thicket as
dangerous to flesh and clothing as a cactus jungle.

The family relationship of the mesquite is with the peas
and beans, a fact less evident from the rather inconspicuous
greenish-yellow flowers that appear in spring than from the
bean-like seed pods with which the little trees are later abund-
antly adorned. These pods contain a sweetish-sourish pulp
when mature, but to the desert dweller their chief value is when
they are dried. They then make a valuable fodder for horses
and cattle, while the seeds themselves if ground make a nutri-
tive meal for human food, as the older generation of Indians
well knew.

Of the same family but very different in appearance is the
small tree Dalca spinosa. With thorny, almost leafless
branches, it is likely to be passed by the traveler as dead or dy-
ing, unless the time be early summer, when it presents a sight
he is not likely to forget. It is then covered with myriads
of purple pea-like blossoms all the more remarkable because of
the hot, parched waste in which the tree grows. I seem to re-
member having seen this desert denizen listed in some nursery-
man's catalogue, and it may be that it has been introduced
into cultivation. It is certainly worthy of a place in any gar-
den, though how it would grow under other conditions than
those of its desert home, I do not know. Plants accustomed to
the excessive dryness of the desert air will often start well in
moister surroundings but are very subject to the attacks of
scale and other insect pests.

Other trees of this desert of southeastern California are
the so-called desert willow (Chilopsis saligna) with a willow-
like aspect and whitish mottled flowers like catalpa to which it
is of kin, and the palo verde (Parkinsonia Torreyana). The
latter, as the Spanish words of its name indicate, is indeed a
green tree — green from base of trunk to tip of the highest

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 99

branch. Yet its leafage is inconspicuous, the verdant aspect
being due to the greenness of the smooth bark which covers
both trunk and Hmbs.

The above mentioned trees grow very scatteringly about
the desert, the individuals as a rule far separated from one
another. There are, however, at least two other kinds of a
more gregarious habit, forming groves of greater or less ex-
tent. The more important of these is the stately California
fan palm, of the botanical genus Washijigtonia named in honor
of our country's first and most eminent president. It is widely
cultivated both in southern Europe and in California where
avenues are often lined with it and its "fronded heads" make
a large element in the semi-tropic appearance of our Land of
Sunshine. In the desert it is found in groves about alkaline
springs, and is most abundant in or near the mouths of certain
canons of the San Jacinto mountain along the desert's west-
ern edge. I have seen it there close to one hundred feet high,
the green fan-like leaves clustered at the summit of the slender
trunks, which are draped with the reflexed old leaves, hang-
ing head downward and forming a protecting thatch or apron.

Much less beautiful but quite as striking is appearance is
the grotesque Joshua tree, an arborescent yucca of the Majave
Desert. The Santa Fe Railroad's California line passes
through a scattered "forest" of these strange growths just
east of the San Bernardino Sierra which separates the cast
country from the desert. With shaggy, clumsy trunks, con-
torted limbs and branches terminating in bunches of stilletto-
like leaves bristling in all directions, they seem like trees of a
nightmare. The best attain a height of fifteen or twenty feet
and in their uncounth way are not unsymmetrical ; but gener-
ally the branches develop irregularly and present many fan-
tastic shapes, such as tridents, rude crosses, columnar clubs, or
writhing, upraised arms with clenched fists.

The term Joshua tree as applied to this singular yucca.

100 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

dates, I believe, from the time of the Mormon occupation of
the Great Basin, but I have never been able to ascertain the
reason for it. Perhaps some reader of the American Botanist
can throw light on the question. I have always heard it
spoken of by the California desert people as "cactus,"
but it is truly a yucca. To find a use for the trees, which are
very abundant on the Mojave Desert, has long taxed the in-
genuity of the inventive. An Englishman who thought he had
solved the problem, once shipped a cargo of the trunks to Eng-
land and had it made up into paper pulp, and I have read that
an edition of a certain British journal was printed on the paper
so made. It was not a satisfactory article,, however, and the
venture was not repeated. At present there is a factory in
Los Angeles which uses considerable of this yucca wood for
the manufacture of such articles as surgeons' splints, book
covers, scrolls for wrapping the trunks of young nursery stock,
etc.

Pasadena, Calif.

ECCENTRICITIES OF DISTRIBUTION.

By Dr. W. W. Bailey.

IF, as often happens during the midsummer days, some one
brings me for determination a specimen of "woad wax,''
the broom {Genista tinctoria), it is my habit to inquire "when
were you in Salem, Mass.," or I may extend the inquiry to any
part of Essex County. This very pretty legume yellows that
whole region as the gorse does certain portions of Great Bri-
tain. It has prevailed there very many years. But the ques-
tion is, why there only? Why, in these days of rapid transit
is it not carried far and wide. As a matter of fact it is not.
I have seen stray specimens of it in Little Compton, R. I. and
I think once in South Kingston, but why doesn't it come down
in full platoon front to Attleboro, Mansfield and Pawtucket?

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 101

Again, throughout Greater Boston, say in Cambridge,
Jamaica Plain, Roxbury and Dorchester, the morning hours of
summer are made gay with the splendid blue heads of chickory.
It is characteristic of the region. Yet forty miles away, in
Rhode Island, this vigorous plant is very local and when found
is rarely in any quantity,

Echium vulgare, as far back as my early botanizing, pre-
vailed as it still does, in vast abundance about the Fall River
railroad tracks and the Wilkesbarre coal wharfs in East Provi-
dence. In any other part of Rhode Island and adjacent Mas-
sachusetts, it is rare. Yet, so far as we can see, there is no
reason why it should not spread along the railway at least to
Riverside. All we know is that it doesn't. A furtive plant
may now and then be seen there, and once I found a little patch
of it, but this weed which is a curse, I am told, on Staten Is-
land and elsewhere in the Middle States, is with the exception
recorded above, a rarity.

The parsley family, Umbelli ferae, shows some queer tricks
of distribution. In all Rhode Island, even to Block Island the
wild carrot or Queen Anne's lace is the prevailing weed, a
lovely nuisance, everywhere. About Mt. Wachusett it is almost
entirely replaced by caraway. Then if one extends his journey
to Lebanon Springs, N. Y., he sees neither of these plants but
in their place the common parsnip. Every place seems to call
for an umbellifer in quantity, but each place as a rule exhibits
a dififerent one. There is something curious in these facts if
philosophy could find them out. Somewhat similar facts are
shown with the mints, Labiatae. In one place, as on Mt.
Wachusetts catnip almost solely prevails ; in another it is re-
placed by motherwort. Both are foreign importations.

These matters have long been in my mind but as yet I can
offer no explanation of the phenomena.

Providence, R. I.

THE HISTORY AND FUTURE OF FORESTRY IN
THE UNITED STATES.

By Mary F. Haggerty.

(concludbd)

The first Government action, which bears any relation to
forestry was taken in 1799, when Congress appropriated
$200,000.00 for the purchase and preservation of timber lands
to supply ship timber for the Navy. In 1822 it authorized the
President to employ the Army and Navy to protect and pre-
serve the live oak, and red cedar of the government in Florida.
In 1872, Yellowstone National Park was established and in
1873 Congress passed its Timber Culture Act which gave
government land in treeless regions to whomsoever would plant
one fourth of his claim with trees. The knowledge that the
forests were being destroyed very rapidly, and the work of the
different forest associations, which were being formed at this
time, led to the passing of the first real forest bill in 1891,
which repealed the Timber Culture Act, and authorized the
President to reserve timber lands on the public domain. In
the beginning this act was met by much just opposition, for
though Congress had set apart the lands and their resources,
it had made no provision for their use or protection. How-
ever, this mistake w^as remedied in 1897, when a law was
passed making it possible to use all the lands and give them
suitable protection, and it was this act which created the, na-
tional forests, or forest reserves. Since 1900 these forests have
been carefully surveyed and mapped, and additions are made to
them yearly. The increase in 1908 being 17,142,941 acres
and that in 1909 26,528,439 acres. The national forests of
today consists of about 145,000,000 acres in the United States
and 26,500,000 more in Alaska and Porto Rico. Men well
trained in the employ of the forest service will, if offered a

better position financially, leave the government employ and

102

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 103

work for individuals or corporations, and in this way, the gov-
ernment is the means of sending out to all parts of the country,
men well trained in forestry.

Many people were and are greatly opposed to the national
forests because they think they are injurious to the home
seeker, to the miner, to the user of the range, to the user of
water and to the tax-payer. Let us see if such is the case.
Before a national forest is created, all agricultural land, as far
as possible is excluded, but if there is any agricultural land so
situated within the boundaries that it cannot be cut out, the
homeseeker is at liberty to choose such of it as he wishes to
apply for. Here, after the usual proceedings, he may spend the
remainder of his life, providing he takes the land for a home
only. The miner may stake out and develop claims just the
same on the national forests as on the public domain, provided
he does not take up claims merely for the timber on the land
or for other purposes not connected with mining. The man
who wishes timber for domestic use or for mining gets all he
wishes for the asking, and the one who wishes it for commer-
cial purposes may obtain it promptly and at a reasonable rate.
There is no chance for a monopoly and the local demand is
always supplied first. The government protects the range
from being burnt, overcrowded and overgrazed, prevents dis-
putes between owners of stock and sees that each owner gets
the use of range to which he has the best right ; the man having
a few head of cattle gets his share of range as easily as the man
with hundreds. The use of water is not affected in the least,
because the appropriation of water is governed entirely by
State and Territorial laws. The tax-payer, instead of being
liable to heavier taxes is not so heavily burdened as if there
were no forests in the country in which he lives, for they pay
the county ten percent of all the receipts from sale of timber,
etc., so that we are obliged to admit that instead of opposition,

104 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

there should be hearty co-operation between these citizens and
the managers of the national forests. Instead of being an
abuse to them^ the national forests are of great use.

But these are not the only people who are indebted to the
Government for the creation and management of forest pre-
serves. They are of great value to all the people. First, the
management sees that though the wood is used; it is not
used up. By wise use the timber is not only conserved
but also a better quality of wood is secured by encouraging a
new and better growth of all of the useful trees. Second, the
forests, which are situated in regions of heavy rainfall are
maintained chiefly to prevent the water from running ofif in de-
structive floods, and in the arid regions of the Rockies, to make
the best use of every drop of water. They also keep the range
in excellent condition by barring out wild animals which would
damage the range and by giving to each man his just share.
Third, perhaps the greatest service of the national forests is
the good use to which all the land is put by preventing monop-
oly by corporations — the dangers of which need not be dis-
cussed ; by preventing or causing a decrease in fires, for since
the fire patrol was started, less than one third of one percent of
the total area of forests has been burned ; by treating cut wood
with preservatives to keep it from decaying — 67,000,000 gal-
lons of creosote and zinc chloride being used for this purpose
in 1909 ; by serving as recreation grounds for a large number
of people of the west, and by keeping the game more abundant.
The forest officers are in many cases appointed as game
wardens in their respective forests. Considering these uses
for the briefest period we must acknowledge their value and
the necessity of their good management.

Let us take a general survey of the management of these
forests. Beginning with the guards, we discover that they are
men doing summer woork only, to assist in preventing fires and

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 105

$720.00 to $900.00 a year. Next above the guards are the
rangers or men who carry out the work on the ground. They
have to take care of themselves and their horses under very
trying conditions, such as building trails and cabins, and often
have to ride all day and night. In addition they must be fa-
miliar with lumbering, the sawmill, the handling of live stock,
mining and the land-laws. Rangers must have vigorous con-
stitutions and be in perfect health. They are paid from
$900.00 to $1500.00 a year and are directly under the nearest
supervisor who has charge of a national forest and who, there-
fore, has a very responsible position, since he manages a pub-
lic estate worth millions of dollars. He must have a good
knowledge of timber, and lumbering, the live stock industry,
land laws and office work but above all he must be able to deal
with all classes of men. The majority of supervisors are pro-
fessional foresters. They receive a salary of from $1500.00
to $3000.00 a year. Both rangers and supervisors are ap-
pointed only after passing civil service examinations and none
but competent men, who are able to withstand the hardships of
such a position are appointed. Though forestry is not a pay-
ing profession, financially, the men who choose it rarely regret
the choice, partly because it is wholesome and partly because
it is pioneer work. Above guards, rangers, and supervisors is
the forest service at Washington, whose work is distributed in
districts directly under the Forester and Associate Forester at
' the Capital.

Thus far in this discussion, no attention has been given to
any action on the part of the States, in relation to the forestry
problem, which might lead one to think that little or nothing
has been or is being done by State authorities. However, such
is not the case, and to show that the States are and have been
interested in this problem, we shall direct our attention first to
the declaration of Governors for the conservation of natural

106 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

resources. A committee of five Governors was appointed by
a conference of Governors from all the States, which met at
the White House in May 1908, to prepare and submit an
article relating to our natural resources. The declaration as
drawn up by the committee and unanimously accepted by the
governors is lengthy but the main clause in it is, "Let us con-
serve the foundations of our prosperity." And what are these
foundations, if not our forests and their products ? The lines
along which the States have been acting are the passing of laws
to protect the forests from trespass and fire, and the establish-
ment and the promotion by various means of State Forests.
The State Laws encourage forestry may be classed under two
heads; first those creating forest commissions and state for-
esters; and second, those offering inducements to plant iorest
trees or to maintain forests. The latter have been unsuccess-
ful in most cases, and as they were poorly framed were de-
clared unconstitutional. At present, the area of the state for-
est reserves amounts to 2,999,440 acres with New York in the
lead and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin closely following. The
States are aided greatly by the forest service, which co-operates
with them in making examinations and in outlining policies for
their protection and proper use. There are now thirty-six
men holding official state positions as foresters, and there are
thirty-three state organizations each doing its best to help the
progress of forestry in the United States.

The forest service extends its help not only to the States
but also to individuals and since three-fourths of all our land
is in the hands of private parties the real forest problem is to
induce private owners to practice forestry. The Government
is doing everything possible to promote the practice of private
forestry. For instance in 1903, 63 new publications and 102
reprints were made and the names on the mailing lists were in-
creased to 750,000. Three hundred and fifty-nine public ad-

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 107

dresses were made by members of the forest service, and, 995
lantern slides were loaned or sold to persons outside the ser-
vice. Experiments are carried on in conjunction with railroad
companies, telephone companies, etc. Plans are made, on ap-
plication, for areas of private forests to secure the best finan-
cial results — present and future — for the owners; and men
have been sent out by the Government to see that the plans are
executed in the most advantageous manner.

This leads us to the consideration of the co-operation be-
tween foresters and lumbermen, a most vital point since the
question rests with the lumbermen as to whether we shall con-
serve or destroy our forests. Not many years ago, the lumber-
man believed the forester was his enemy. In many cases he
was justified since the majority of foresters laid such stress on
the preservation of our forests that he did not realize that
"The principal idea of forestry is the preservation of our for-
ests by wise use" or that practical forestry means con-
servative lumbering. Do they not see that practical for-
estry is a good business investment since conservative lumber-
ing pays in the proportion of the value of the second crop and
it rests chifly in their hands to make the second crop valuable?
It would seem that they did since they are becoming more and
more friendly to the principles of forestry and the time will
soon come, when the forester and lumberman will work hand
in hand.

There are four national forest associations — The Ameri-
can Forestry Association, The Appalachian National Forest
Association, The International Society of Arborictulture, and
the Society of American Forests. At the head are such men
as the Honorable James Wilson, D, A. Tompkins, General
William Palmer, and GifTord Pinchot. These men have the
interest of the nation and the advance of practical forestry at
heart, and write and make addresses with the view of helping
the people realize the great importance of the subject.

108 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

Twelve years ago there were no schools of forestry in the
United States and professional foresters were obliged to go
abroad to secure their education. But in 1898 such schools
were established at Cornell University in New York and Bilt-
more in North Carolina. Others have followed in quick suc-
cession till today there are twelve in this country which are
graduating more and more students every year. This is shown
in the following statistics :

Years— 1901-02-03-04-05-06-07-08-09
No. Graduated— 6 -13-20-38-40-45-48-60-72

Sixty-five of these students, or about one-fifth of the to-
tal, went abroad to complete their studies. According to Dr.
Schenck of the Biltmore School, about two-thirds of the num-
ber graduated became professional foresters and the other third
abandoned the subject after graduation. When these schools
were first established, it was advantageous, to say the least, for
the student to complete their education abroad, but today,
thorough training may be had at the schools of forestry in the
United States.

Finally what is to become of the forestry movement in
the United States? Has it not progressed rapidly in the past
twenty years? Is there not hearty co-operation between the
Federal Government the individual states, individuals, lumber-
men, and educators ? Have we not the results obtained abroad
to help us? And are not our forests well worth conserving?
To all of which questions there is but one answer and we can
almost see the glorious future forestry is to have in this
country. The prospects are all that could be desired but with-
out constant faithful care, wise management, and the hearty
co-operation of the public, our future cannot hope to be what
it should be — bright, prosperous and successful.

Hohoken, N. J.

NOTE AND COMMENT

D Cs

7
J

Galls on Peppermint. — On October 16th while botan-
izing in a swampy meadow, I saw a great number of pepper-
mint plants which seemed to have a single flower bud at the
top of the stem instead of a number of flowers around the stem
as usual. Every plant bore this central bud. Being convinced
that it could not be a flower bud, I opened one and found it
was a gall containing two tiny yellow larvae. There were no
signs of flowers, past or present on any plant. — Miss Pauline
Kaufman, New York.

The Use of Botany. — "Of what use is it all?" The in-
quiry is perfectly natural but to it there are three sufficient
answers. First, scientific study gives happiness to some people
who are as much entitled to their own kind of uplifting enjoy-
ment as are those who take pleasure in literature, art, music or
the drama ; and their preference should receive the same sym-
pathy and respect as are accorded the latter. Second, man
rises in the cosmic scale chiefly through effort and next after
conquest of himself scientific investigation of the world about
him offers the most natural worthy and efifective field for the
uplifting of his powers. Third, the history of science has
shown that those scientific discoveries which have resulted in
great practical benefit to mankind have been made in the most
unexpected places, even in the most unpractical subjects; and it

109

no THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

is quite impossible to predict where, on the broad surface of
expanding knowledge, the next practical development will
spring forth. Hence the only logical way is to encourage the
advancement of all phases of knowlege — trusting with faith
born of experience that sooner or later some result will appear
of such value as to pay many fold for it all. — Dr. W .F. Gan-
ong in The Teaching Botanist.

Grindelia Squarrosa in New York. — We are yearly
finding plants new to this section. Among these, moth mul-
lein {Verbascum Blattaria), velvet leaf (Abutilon theophrasti)
great ragweed (Ambrosia triUda) and others, formerly absent
or very rare, are now becoming plentiful, making so many
more bad weeds to contend with. One of my best finds for
1910 in this eastern New York locality is Grindelia squarrosa,
the broad-leaved gum plant, whose home is in Illinois, Minne-
sota and the southwest. It has not before been reported from
New York. I found it on a hillside pasture and it is fully es-
tablished, for the colony has many thousand plants, and covers
two acres or more — scattering in places, but in others as
crowded as it can grow. It looks very pretty with its bright
yellow blossoms, and they are plentiful enough to distinctly
show the color at a distance of three-fourths of a mile. But
it is terribly gummy and soils the hands and everything it
touches, and often taking it from the press you can scarcely
get the papers away from it, and they can never be used again.
How it comes here in quantity no one can say. Perhaps in
western grass seed. If so it should appear elsewhere, and It
seems strange that it should pass over hundreds of miles of
intervening country, to locate here, for its first eastern home.
From the way it flourishes and is spreading, it bids fair, at no
distant day, to cover the hillsides of New York and New Eng-
land as plentifully as daisies and buttercups. I only add that
the place where found is 60 miles north of Albany and but a
mile from the Vermont line. — F. T. Penibcr. Granville, N. Y.

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 111

Varieties. — It is interesting to note that many of the
characteristics that we ascribe to varieties are found through-
out the plant world and are likely to crop out in the most di-
verse places. Among these may be mentioned dwarfs which
may appear in any species. Other equally common forms are
divided leaves, fasciated stems, white flowered forms, double
flowers, thornless forms, smooth forms in hairy species, weep-
ing or drooping forms, rose-colored forms of blue or purple
flowers, yellow berried foiTns of normally red or black species,
yellow flowers among red flowered forms, and so forth. A
little search among the wild plants of one's own neighborhood
will usually yield a variety of such specimens. Most of them
come true from seed or may be subdivided in various ways if
one desires to multiply the variety. One who has a taste for
gardening may find the cultivation and study of such forms a
most absorbing pastime.

Science to Fit the Facts. — Shortly after the Darwin-
ian theory was announced with its implication that everything
that exists in nature has been called into existence because use-
ful to the organism possessing it, it became the fashion to in-
terpret every structure in this light with the result that some
very unscientific deductions were made, many of which still
linger on in popular works to vex the incautious student. A
good example of these interesting misinterpretations is found
in the function ascribed to the juice of the milkweed. This,
we are gravely told, exists for the purpose of protecting the
plant from the depredations of insects. "It has been found
that the outer covering of the stem is extremely delicate and
that the tiny claw-like feet of insects that attempt to crawl up
the stalk will cut through this covering sufficiently to cause the
feet of such visitors to become sticky with the milky fluid. This
not only discourages would-be pilferers of the flowers' sweets
but makes it quite impossible for them to reach the top of the

112 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

tall stem." This statement is taken from a book published dur-
ing the present year. Had the author gone to nature instead of
to books for his information, he would have found ants in
plenty travelling up the stems, various beetles feedmg among
the blossoms, and larvae of butterflies feeding on the leaves.

Number OF Plant Species. — Theophrastus (twenty-two
centuries ago) knew about 500 species of plants of all kinds;
Linne (two centuries ago) knew 8,551 species; DeCandolle
(in 1819) reckoned 30,000 species of Phanerogams, alone;
Lindley (in 1845) reckoned 79,837 species of Phanerogams;
Duchartre (in 1885) placed the number of Phanerogams then
known at 100,000 species, and of Cryptogams at 25,000 spe-
cies ; Saccardo (in 1892) estimated the known species of plants
of all kinds at 173,706 ; while a very recent calculation by Bes-
sey (in 1910) places the number at about 210,000.

Our Unsubdued Wildflowers. — As a matter of senti-
ment we may regret the disappearance of many choice wild-
flowers from the haunts of men, but a cold business proposition
cannot take sentiment into account and without emotion city
building lots are staked out in the midst of many a floral para-
dise. The wildflowers are diminishing in the thickly settled
portions of our country in spite of our best efforts to the con-
trary, but it is comforting to reflect that there are vast areas
even close to civilization from which it will be practically im-
possible to ever eradicate the flowers. No one who has ever
crossed the state of Pennsylvania from east to west will doubt
this assertion. The railways wind along in narrow valleys
from which rise hills too steep for farming, too steep for pas-
turing, almost too steep for climbing and fit only for growing
timber. In such retreats the wilflowers will linger on in no
fear of extermination. The botanist may penetrate to their
haunts but no thoughtless band of picnickers will devastate
the landscape, nor will the march of civilization blot out whole

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 113

colonies of rare plants. In all broken country this condition
exists ; the prairie flora, is the one that is on the way to exter-
mination. Already a piece of native prairie is hard to find and
the flowers are disappearing before the plow.

Early Plant Names. — It is popularly supposed that
Linnaeus was the originator of the binomial system of naming
plants and the first botanist to give but two names, a generic
and a specific, to each species. This is quite incorrect. Two
centuries before the time of the famous Swede there were
writers on plants who knew them by only two names which
were clearly equivalent to genus and species. The good ex-
ample they set was not followed, unfortunately, and it re-
mained for Linnaeus to give this method sufficient promin-
ence and authority to make it accepted by later writers. Be-
fore the day of generic and specific names plants were com-
monly designated by a string of Latin words. Thus our com-
mon adders tongue (Erythronium Americanum) was called
"Dens caninus Hore luteo," the Christmas fern {Polystichum
acrostichoides) was "Filix mas foliis integris auriculatis," and
the walking fern {Camptosorus rhisophylliis) masqueraded as
Phyllitis parva saxatilis per summitates folii prolifera. The
wonder is that the world waited until the time of Linnaeus
for so manifest an improvement.

Bacteria in the Soil. — Most people are fairly familiar
with the fact that the soil is by no means a mere collection of
dead and inert particles of sand and clay. Billions of bacteria
are found in every inch of the surface layers and the soil may
be said to be alive in the most literal way. Many of these bac-
teria are helpful species engaged in turning decaying vegeta-
tion into nitrates for the use of other crops, but others there are
in plenty that cause diseases in plants or animals. The bacteria
causing plant diseases are among the more interesting. In

114 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

this class are the causes of wilt in various plants, club-root of
cabbage, onion smut, scab, black-rot and similar troubles.
The germs of these diseases can live in the soil for one or more
seasons waiting to infest the next lot of plants that way be
grown. Not only are they hard to eradicate when they once
get in but they may infect other fields in a variety of ways;
from the hoofs of animals or the feet of laborers who visit new
fields, in feed or manure, even from tools that have been used
in the infested ground. Cases are also known in which the in-
fection was spread by rains washing down the germs from
higher land.

Rare Iowa Plants. — Noting your article concerning the
discovery of Tribuhis terrestris at Joliet, will say, regarding
the fact of Joliet being the third inland station, that this plant
has been known from at least two localities in Muscatine
County, Iowa for the past twelve or fifteen year and was re-
ported by Reppert, Barnes, and Miller in a Flora of Scott and
Muscatine Counties published in 1900 (Proc. Davenport Acad.
Sci. VIII — p. 210). At that time it was reported from Mus-
catine and Fruitland, and having collected it for several years
at the latter place I can vouch for the fact that it is still well
established. Now I have a new find to record, which may
However prove, like the caltrop, to be better established or more
widespread than we now think, but if so, I will be glad to know
more concerning its distribution. Some years ago I found at
Fort Dodge, (la.) a plant which, at first glance, I took to be a
Rumex but closer examination disproved this without, how-
ever, clearing up the mystery. A short time ago in studying
a series of Atriplex from Norway, I recognized my mysterious
plant and comparison proved it to be Atriplex hortense L.
This has, I believe, been reported from eastern ballast heaps,
but I have never heard of its occurrence inland. — M. P. Somes,
Iowa City, Iowa.

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 135

Getting Rid of Dandelions. — Some apprehensive land-
owners are after the dandehons early and late each spring and
after a good deal of back-breaking labor digging them out fail
to see that their premises are any more free from dandelions
than some indolent neighbor who refused to dig a weed. As
a matter of fact, the man who refuses to dig dandelions except
for "greens" has much reason for his view of the case. Dig-
ging dandelions may actually have the effect of multiplying
them since the roots can send up new shoots and usually do so,
thus producing two or more where the one was originally.
Moreover, the open spot left where a plant was dug forms just
the right seed bed for new weeds to grow. Possibly the best
way to get rid not only of dandelions but other weeds in the
lawn, is to feed the grass well, set the lawn mower rather high
and let the grass run them out. Most of the weeds that trouble
the lawn are such as require an open space in which to spread
out their leaves. Letting the grass grow tall obliges these
plants to lift their leaves and the mower gets them. Grass can
endure this frequent shearing, but the other plants cannot.

The Increase of Dodder. — Many years ago the clovers
in the United States were free from dodder {Cuscuta sp.) al-
though the botanists were well aware that in Europe clover
and lucerne (called alfalfa in the United States) were often
attacked by this interesting parasite. Between twenty-five
and thirty years ago the first specimen of dodder attacking
clover was sent to me, and from that time to the present there
has been a notable increase in the amount of dodder in the
country. Each year I have my attention called more and more
forcibly to the fact that dodder has come to be a very serious
menace to the grower of clover and alfalfa. We have here a
most interesting example of how a parasite may invade a
country and spread with a good deal of rapidity. Apparently

116 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

it will not be long before our clovers and the alfalfa will be as
badly infested with dodder as they are in Europe. I might
say that not only the regular clover dodder of the Old World
has come into this country and spread so rapidly, but at least
one native species of dodder has sufficiently changed its habitat
to become a serious pest upon the clovers. — Charles E. Bessey.

Weed Immigrants. — Three years ago in making a
garden, the writer had occasion to break up a piece of prairie
sod that had not been cultivated for twenty years or more. So
far as could be seen, and as shown by adjacent pieces of the
same sod, weeds were practically absent, but in the piece of
ground broken up all the old familiar species at once appeared
to dispute possession with the crops. Some of the most per-
sistent of these are burdock, clotbur, plantain, dandelion, shep-
herds purse, prickly lettuce, sour dock, curled dock, mullein,
thistle, purslane, butter-and-eggs, pigweed, white amaranth,
spurge, quack grass, pepper grass, rag-weed, horse-weed, flea-
bane, mustard and sweet clover. It would be a difficult matter
to say where they all came from. Doubtless many were lying
in the soil waiting for an opportunity, others probably were
from plants that year after year had grown among the grasses
without attracting notice, and still others were probably blown
onto the soil from other fields. It is quite likely that any piece
of grass-land is thus seeded with weed seeds every year but
the grass is too well established to permit them to grow.

— ^ ^

SCHOOL BOTANY^;s=^f,

Successful Teaching. — The measure of the teachers
success is the degree in which ideas come, not from him but
from his pupils. A brilHant address may produce a tempor-
ary emotion of admiration, a dry lecture may produce a per-
manent impulse in its hearers. One may compare some who
are popularly known as gifted teachers to expert swimmers
who stay on the bank and talk inspiringly on analysis of
strokes ; the centrifugal teacher takes the pupils into the water
with him ; he may even pretend to drown and call for rescue.
This was the lesson taught me by the great embryologist
Francis Balfour of Cambridge who was singularly noted for
doing joint papers with his men. An experiment I have tried
with great success in order to cultivate centrifugal power and
expression at the same time is to get out of the lecture chair
and make my students in turn lecture to me. This is virtually
the famous method of teaching law re-discovered by the edu-
cational genius of Langdell ; the students do all the lecturing
and discoursing, the professor lolls quietly in his chair and
makes comment; the stimulus upon ambition and competition
is fairly magical ; there is in the class-room the real intellectual
struggle for existence which one meets in the world of affairs.
I would apply this very Socratic principle to every branch of
instruction early and late, and thus obey the "acceleration"
law in education which I have spoken of above as bringing
into earlier and earlier stages, those powers which are to be
actually in service in after life. — Dr. H. F. Osborn in Science.

117

118 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

Plants in the School Garden. — The greater part of
the school garden is Hkely to be devoted to growing vegetables
and flowers by the children, but no matter how large or small
the class may be, a part of the ground should be set aside for
specimens of unusual vegetation. In this plot may be grown
such specimens as flax, hemp, hops, tobacco, sugar-cane, cotton,
sorghum, broom corn, peanuts, sweet potatoes, artichokes,
millet, oats, barley, cow-peas and many more. A similar plot
may well be devoted to plant curios such as clovers with four
and five leaves, "everlasting" flowers, albino forms, dwarf
forms, cactus, edelweiss, bleeding heart, autumn crocus, four
o'clocks, and evening primrose. Room ought also to be found
somewhere for a line of shrubbery containing plants of special
interest such as the barberry, bladder-nut, hop-tree, silver bell,
witch hazel, prickly ash, buffalo berry, papaw, yucca, bitter
sweet, burning bush, and gingko. A course in gardening is
not alone for instruction and practice in raising vegetables and
flowers. Properly conducted it should open the minds of the
children to the beauties of all nature and leave them with a
lasting interest in things out of doors.

Material for Study. — There are very few things in the
high school botanical course that cannot be studied at first hand
and this without recourse to many pickled specimens. As a
general thing the young student recoils at preserved material
but if fresh material be insisted upon, the teacher should have
a definite place in which to collect it, and not be expected to
range the countryside for miles around in search of illustrative
specimens. Few besides the energetic teacher realize the
amount of time needed for collecting; certainly high school
boards do not. The securing of proper material should be
made part of the day's work and if the teacher be allowed to
take the class on field trips in search of it, during the periods
allotted to the study, the results are excellent, since the pupils

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 119

see much more of botany than is represented by the specimens
brought back. Most teachers, however, will find it easier to
have some place in which to grow their material. If the
school has a school garden, one should insist upon a part being
devoted to the growing of plants with tendrils, thorns, clado-
phylls, and other structures that are needed. Often, however,
the teacher will be obliged to grow such things in his home
grounds and get his reward entirely from the consciousness
that his subject has been properly taught.

Growing Mucor. — Everybody who takes up the study
of fungi becomes acquainted with the black mold {Mucor)
which appears on bread and other food products, but possibly
because it is so abundant and ubiquitous little attention is paid
to special methods of cultivating it. One of the best schemes
we have seen for getting specimens that the dullest pupil can-
not fail to see well was originated by Mr. F. A. Houghton.
By his method a drop of clear gelatin is placed on a glass slide,
some mold spores sown in it and then placed in a moist chamber
for growth. In a short time the mycelia may be seen pushing
into various parts of the food material, and the young sporo-
phores rising from it. If the specimens are properly cared for
they may be examined several days in succession and will give
the pupil a better idea of the habits of this mould than any
series of prepared slides or living material taken from bread
or other moldy objects.

Growth Rate of the Giant Cactus. — Some investi-
gations recently made concerning the rate of growth of the
giant cactus {Cereus giganteiis) have resulted in some rather
astonishing information. Cacti of all kinds are known to be
rather deliberate in adding to their bulk and this species is no
exception. Specimens less than five inches high are known
to be ten years old while the fairly large specimens, running up
to fifteen feet or more in height, require at least sixty years to
attain this size.

120

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

KEY TO THE APETALOUS

1 Shrubs and trees (2)

2 Some of the flowers in catkins (3)
3 Staminate flowers, only, in catkins (4)
Leaves simple ; nuts in involucres.
Leaves pinnate ; nuts without involucre.

S Both pistillate and staminate flowers in catkins (5)
5 Fruit fleshy, a sorosis.
5 Fruit dry (6)
6 Catkin globular.

In racemes ; nutlets two-celled.
Solitary ; nutlets one-celled.

6 Catkins cylindrical or oblong.

Ovary many seeded ; seeds with pappus.
Ovary one-seeded.

Ovary one-celled ; fruit often fleshy.
Two-celled ; fruit often winged.

2 None of the flowers in catkins (7)
7 Leaves opposite (8)
8 Fruit a samara.

Samara, double, two winged.
Samara, single.

8 Fruit not a samara (9)
9 Fruit dry, three-seeded.
9 Fruit a drupe, or druplike.
Stamens two.
Stamens more numerous.
Three ; parasitic plants.
Four to eight ; not parasites.

7 Leaves Alternate (10)

10 Style or stigma, one.

Calyx free from the ovary.
Anthers opening by valves.
Anthers not opening by valves.
Calyx adherent to the ovary.
Shrubs ; ovules two to four.
Trees ; ovule one.
Stamens four.
Stamens more.
10 Styles or stigmas, two or more (11)
11 Two, three or four.

Fruit a samara or drupe.
Shrubs or vines.
Trees.
Fruit a capsule.
Two-celled.
Three-celled.
11 Five to nine.
Leaves simple.
Leaves pinnate.

♦Numbers in parenthesis after family names, refe
Gray's and Britton's manuals, respectively
plant groups, see previous issues.

DYCOTYLEDONS.*

Fagaceae. (G. 337. B. 330)
Juglandaceae. (G. 330. B. 322)

Moraceae. (G. 344. B. 339)

Hamamelidaceae. (G. 452. B. 488)
Platanaceae. (G. 454. B. 490)

Salicaceae. (G. 320. B. 307)

Myricaceae. (G. 329. B. 320)
Betulaceae. (G. 332. B. 326)

Aceraceae. (G. 557. B. 607)
Oleaceae. (G. 650. B. 723)

Euphorbiaceae. (G. 540. B. 585)

Oleaceae. (G. 650. B. 723)

Loranthaceae. (G. 351. B. 344)
Eleagnaceae. (G. 590. B. 646)

Lauraceae. (G. 413. B. 435)
Thymelaceae. (G. 589. B. 645

Santalaceae. (G. 349. B. 345)

Elaeagnaceae. (G. 590. B. 646)
Cornaceae. G. 623. B. 689)

Rhamnaceae. (G. 561. B. 611)
Ulmaceae. (G. 344. B. 337)

Hamamelidaceae. (G. 452. B. 488)
Euphorbiaceae. (G. 540. B. 585)

Empetraceae. (G. 551. B. 598)
Rutaceae. (G. 537. B. 581)

V to the pages in latest editions of
For keys covering the other great

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 121

)s (12)

12 Flowers lacking a perinanth (13)

13 Flowers in spikes. Piperaceae. (G. 320. B. 307)

13 Flowers solitary, minute.

Stamens numerous, leaves whorled, dissected. Ceratophyllaceae. (G. 389. B. 408)
Stamens and styles, one or two.

Leaves opposite. Callitrichiaceae. (G. 549. B. 596)

Leaves alternate. Podostemaceae. (G. 441. B. 472)

12 Flowers with calyx or calyx-like involucre (14)
14 Ovary inferior (15)

15 Stamens five, style one. Santalaceae. (G. 349. B. 345)

15 Stamens more or less than five, styles various.

Stamens six or twelve. Aristolochiaceae. (G. 351. B. 347)

Stamens one to ten.

Stigmas two. Saxifragaceae. (G. 444. B. 484)

Stigmas one, three or four. Onagraceae. (G. 594. B. 651)

14 Ovary superior, sometimes enclosed by the calyx (16)
16 Style or stigma one (17)

17 Ovaries 4 or more, one ovuled.

Stamens on the receptacle. Ranunculaceae. (G. 392. B. 411)

Stamens on the calyx. Rosaceae. (G. 454. B. 490)

17 Ovary one (18)

18 One ovuled, one seeded.

Flowers monoecious or dioecious. Urticaceae. (G: 344. B. 341)

Flowers perfect, calyx entire, colored. Nyctagmaceae.(G. 375. B.382)
18 Many ovuled.

Stamens four, opposite the sepals. Lythraceae. (G. 591. B. 648)

Stamens five alternating with sepals. Primulaceae. (G. 643. B. 713)

16 Styles and stigmas more than one (19)

19 Ovules one to three ; stigmas two to five (20)

20 Fruit three seeded. Euphorbiaceae (G. 540. B. 585)

20 Fruit one seeded.

Plants with stipules.

Stipules sheathing the stem.
Stipules not sheathing.

Plants without stipules.
Calyx scarious bracted.
Calyx naked.

LeavcB alternate.

Leaves opposite.

19 Ovules four or more, styles two to twelve (21)
21 Leaves opposite.

Fruit a capsule, four or five valved. Caryophyllaceae. (G. 377. B. 387)
Fruit a utricle, circumscissle. Portulaceae. (G. 387. B. 384)

21 Leaves alternate.

Fruit a berry, four to ten seeded. Phytolaccaceae. (G. 374. B.381)
Fruit dry.

Capsule five celled. Crassulaceae. (G. 441. B. 473)

Utricle, circumscissle. Amaranthaceae. (G. 371. B. 377)

Polygonaceae.

(G.

353.

350)

Illecebraceae.

(G.

376.

387)

Amaranthaceae.

(G.

371.

377)

Chenopodiaceae.

(G.

364.

368)

Caryophyllaceae.

(G.

377.

387)

o v N EDITORIAL / , ^

^ o g ^ ■

Beginning with our next volume we have decided to stop
subscriptions at the end of the time for which they are paid.
This is not done to avoid being defrauded by those who fail to
pay their subscriptions, for as a matter of fact, we have not lost
fifteen dollars in this way since we began publication. Most
of our subscribers renew their subscriptions very soon after
being notified and we think that the small number who fail to
do so should not keep us from joining the ever incresing num-
ber of publishers who have adopted a modern way of doing
business. At the same time the editor is well aware that it is
not always convenient to renew as soon as subscriptions expire
and personally holds in high regard those publications to which
he subscribes that are not insistent upon renewal until he finds
time for it. With these facts in mind we are quite willing to
extend the time for anyone who for any reason does not care
to renew promptly. All that is necessary is to drop us a line
instructing us to continue sending the magazine until ordered
to stop. Payment may then be made during the year when
most convenient. We have a considerable number of such
letters on file already and we hope nobody will go without the
magazine because they are unable to renew promptly. The
subscription price is so low that the cost of renewing is not

worth consideration.

* * *

In his excellent book "The Teaching Botanist" Dr. Gan-
ong in referring to botanical publications says : "But as to a
journal for the teacher and general reader, we have as yet none
that even approaches a satisfactory character and the lack of it
is another illustration of the weakness of this science on the
literary side. Such a journal should be accurate in fact, liter-

122

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 123

ary in tone, artistic in dress, and comprehensive in its scope —
having departments of leading articles, contemporary dis-
coveries, educational advances, editorial comment, reprints of
botanical classics, book reviews, biographical and other news ;
and it should cover these subjects so systematically that noth-
ing of consequence would be missed and no teacher or other
person of botanical interests could afford to go without it. '
Dr. Ganong makes the mistake of attributing the lack of such
a publication to a weakness on the book side of botany. The
real cause is due to a weakness on the pocket-book side. Hav-
ing been concerned in the publication of no less than seven dif-
ferent botanical publications five of which are still doing busi-
ness though far from Dr. Ganong's ideal, the editor is inclined
to doubt whether a magazine of the kind outlined would ever
prove successful. Both this magazine and The Plant World
started out to become just such magazines but failed to receive
the support of the very people supposed to be most interested,
and later the proposed Doriieria has been abandoned for the
same reason. At the end of its second year The Plant World
had less than 300 paying subscribers and this magazine was
not much better off when it completed two years of work. As
a matter of fact the botanists of the country seldom subscribe
for publications in their line. The institution with which they
are connected subscribes for a copy, of course, and they de-
pend upon this for their information. Since this magazine has
been published we have received nearly ten thousand requests
for sample copies, but, alas, our circulation lacks several hun-
dred to reach that attractive number. Botanical magazines,
like everything else, are subject to evolution, and those that
are now doing business illustrate very well the survival of the
fittest. The ideal magazine of the botanist can be kept alive
just as long as some kind-hearted individual will finance it, but
left to itself it has no more chance of surviving than some new
"creation" of the gardener under similar circumstances. The

124 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

great mass of the botanically inclined are interested almost en-
tirely in collecting and exchanging plants. The philosophical
botanists and botanizers must always be few and far between,
but such as there are we are pleased to number them among

our subscribers.

* * *

In the not very distant future, this magazine expects to in-
crease to forty pages an issue with no increase in the subscrip-
tion price. When most magazines enlarge the price enlarges
likewise, the editors evidently reasoning that a smaller circula-
tion at an increased price per copy is better than a wider read
ing at the old figure. Every time we have increased this
magazine, which has been several times, the increased circula-
tian has made up for the increased cost of making and we ex-
pect the same results again. Before we can enlarge, however,
we must have a larger amount of contributed articles and notes.
There has been a gratifying response to our request in the
August issue, but, like certain eminent financiers we still want
more.

BOOKS AND WRITERS.

"The Landscape Beautiful" is the rather hackneyed title
for a series of essays on the utility of the natural landscape and
its relation to human life and happiness, by F. A. Waugh.
Those who take up the book in the expectation of finding it a
manual of park and garden making will be disappointed, but
the disappointment should be lost in the delight which the book
must give to all who take pleasure in the beauties of nature or
who believe that the esthetic has a value as well as the practi-
cal. There are seventeen essays in all, and they range from a
discussion of the weather and the ministry of trees, to the
ownership of scenery, the art that mends nature and the land-
scape in literature. The author has a keen appreciation of the

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 125

values of the landscape and expresses it in a most attractive
manner. The publishers have seconded the author by giving
the text an appropriate setting, which is further beautified
by fifty artistic reproductions of landscapes from all parts of
the country. The Orange Judd Co. are the publishers and the
price of the book is $2.00 net.

After forty years of teaching Dr. W. J. Beal has retired
from the chair of Botany at the Michigan Agricultural College
and in the future will reside with his son-in-law Ray Stannard
Baker in New York. Though still hale and hearty, Dr. Beal
has concluded that at the age of 77 he has earned a rest. May
he long live to enjoy it! His services to botany are too well
known to need repeating here. He is one of the few remaining
examples of the old time field botanist who though quite
at home in the laboratory and class-room finds great pleasure
among the growing things. Dr. Beal is succeeded by Dr.
Ernst A. Bessey, son of Dr. C. E. Bessey of the University of
Nebraska. The younger Bessey is a botanist of much promise
and has held various important positions under the government
and elsewhere, but his fame has been rather overshadowed by
that of his distinguished father.

Our ornamented shrubs have ever been a difficult problem
for the botanizer. Cultivated chiefly for their beauty, they
hail from distant lands and other inaccessible regions, and to
run them down in the floras of their respective countries re-
quires more money, time and labor than the collector cares to
devote to them. Nor is the task of assembling tlie descrip-
tions of all these in one book an easy one and in addition to
locating the species in the books, it requires great familiarity
with the stock of gardener and nurseryman in order to include
those entitled to admission. That such a book has at last been
made is likely to be the verdict of all who have had the pleas-
ure of looking into Apagar's "Oniamental Shrubs of the

126 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

United States," published by the American Book Company.
This is a real botanical manual of the shrubs with numerous
keys such as are found in other manuals, accurate descriptions
and a profusion of illustrations but with little, if any, "popu-
lar" information. The descriptions, it may be added, are as
untechnical as possible in a work of the kind. Common
names are freely used and the methods usual in propagating
each species are noted. The shrubs are arranged according to
modern ideas of sequence and thus the treatment corresponds
to that in current botanical manuals, yet we find many familiar
families of the flower manual lacking because there are no
shrubs in them, while, the names of various new families and
genera call attention to the differences that must exist in the
flora of lands having approximately the same climate. With
this book in hand a walk in the parks of a great city will have
much of the interest and zest that a ramble in the country has
for the plant lover.

There seems to be no end to the botanical text-books de-
signed for use in high school or college. In most of these
there is little that is unique, the authors apparently depending
for consideration upon their method of treating the subject.
One of the latest of these is "Botany for High Schools," by
Geo. F. Atkinson issued by Henry Holt and Company. The
book follows the general run in being divided into two parts
the first being devoted to the structure and physiology of
flowering plants and the second to the spore-plants. In the
latter some variations in the arrangement of the thallophytes
are noted, the conjugating algae coming before the one-celled
green algae and the blue-green forms following the green. In
■tlhis part also is noted an inclination toward the study of
"types" with but a slender thread of evolution connecting
them. In thus presenting the subject the author is in good
company, for practically all books written by College men take

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 127

the same stand but the high school teacher knows that his pu-
pils are little interested in types and that he must have some-
thing more than this to keep them interested. That something
may well be evolution but the text books seldom emphasize it.
The influence of the college is seen again in the use of the
entirely superfluous word scutellum for what may as well be
named the cotyledon of the corn. No directions for labora-
tory work are given though one infers from the text that some-
thing of the kind is expected. The author has been wise, how-
ever, in keeping such directions out of a text-book. Among
errors that a captious critic might note are the careless use of
terms as when a seed is called castor-bean on one page and
castor oil bean, on the next, the definition of a seed makes no
inclusion of the endosperm and though cells are mentioned fre-
quently there seems no adequate discussion of the subject in
the early parts of the book. It may be noted that the chemical
formula given for starch on page 103 might be taken
for a proteid. These, however, are minor defects. The book
has the merit of being well-written, and the information con-
veyed in understandable language and the fundamentals are
not obscured by a great number of exceptions. There are also
an abundance of good illustrations. Chapters on ecology,
plant breeding, evolution, plant societies and economic plants
complete the book making nearly five hundred pages.

Within the year, the publishers have given us two ex-
ceedingly valuable books on the diseases of plants both by ac-
knowledged authorities on the subject. First to appear was
Duggar's 'Tungous Diseases of Plants" recently reviewed in
these pages and now we have "Diseases of Economic Plants"
by F. L. Stevens and J. G. Hall. This latter book begins with
a minimum of introductory matter relating to the origin,
symptoms and care of plant diseases, fungicides, sprays and
spraying and soil disinfection and then plunges into the task of

128 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

describing the diseases that infest our cultivated plants. Since
plant diseases do not vary with the author, the merits of a
book depend upon the way the subject is treated. Duggar's
book discussed each disease under the organism that causes
it, the present volume treats of the diseases as they are found
affecting the various species of plants. No attempt is made to
describe the organisms that cause the disease the whole atten-
tion being given to the characteristic features of the disease
itself and the methods of treatment. In these matters the
book is both full and satisfactory. The diseases are treated
under such heads as those infecting trees and timber, those af-
fecting ornamental plants, forage crops, tropical plants and
the like. The attempt of the authors to make a common
name for each disease by adding ose to the name of the casual
fungus is, in the opinion of the reviewer, scarcely successful.
To call dry rot of the potato lasiodiplodiose, for instance does
not seem to help matters. The book contains many good il-
lustrations and nearly five hundred pages of text. It is pub-
lished by the MacMillan Company at $2.00 net.

Three years have elapsed since the appearance of Stevens
"Plant Anatomy" and now we have a second edition revised
and enlarged by the addition of a chapter on evolution and
a number of illustrations. Although the book is well known
to students it may not be amiss to call attention to the fact
that it takes up botany from the standpoint of the develop-
ment and function of the tissues and beginning with the cell
shows how it has been modified to form the various tissues
found in the plant body. Especially to be noted with approval
are the numerous explanatory diagrams of plant parts and the
suggestions for additional studies. Though larger than the
first edition the price remains the same, $2.00 net. It is pub-
lished by Blakiston, Philadelphia.

e Newest Books

The books listed l^elow ha\e all been issued during the
past year. They are from the presses of many publishers, but
we can send any of them postpaid upon receipt of the prices
given. For other botanical works see our complete list which
may be had upon application.

When Aiiicricaii Botanist is ordered with one of these
books it will be sent one year, for 7)0 cents — a saving of 25
cents. Wdien two books are ordered the magazine will be sent
one year for 40 cents. Save money by ordering your books
of us.

W'iklflowers East of the Rockies — Reed $2.65

Who's Who Among the Wildtlowers — Beecroft 1.30

Our Garden Flowers — Keeler 2.15

Who's \\ ho Among the h'erns — Beecroft 1.20

Guide to the Mushrooms — Cole 1.10

Diseases of Economic Plants — Stevens and Hall 2.20

Fungous Diseases of Plants — Duggar 2.00

Care of Trees in Lawn and Park — Fernow 2.15

Ornamental Shrubs of the Cnited States — Apgar 1.50

Xew Manual of Rocky Mountain Botany — Coulter and

Nelson 2.50

Botany — Bailey 1.10

Botany for High Schools — Atkinson 1.25

Among School Gardens — Greene 1.25

School Garden Book — ^^'eed and Emerson 1.15

Garden Primer — l'al)or and Teall 1.00

Manual of Gardening — Bailey 2.15

Principles of Plant Culture — Goff 1.12

Elements of Agriculture — Warren 1.12

Soil Fertility — Hopkins 2.75

Teaching Botanist (2nd Ed. ) — Ganong 1.32

Landscape Gardening Studies — Parsons 2.20

Landscape Beautiful — Waugh 2.15

Wood AA^anderings — Packard 1.20

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OUR FERNS IN THEIR HAUNTS, by Willard N. Clute. Octavo, 888
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scouring rushes, club-mosses, quillworts, selaginellas, water>fems, etc*
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Price $1.25

Of the several books which I have -written, none
appear to be better appreciated by the public than
this little book on Mosses, which is intended as a
text book for beginners. These very attractive
plants may be found at all seasons, but there is no
better time than late winter and early spring. Send

'"'"'""'"' C.J. Maynard

447 Crafts St. West Newton, Mass.

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The Bryologist begins its thirteenth
year and volume with the January
nnmber. The Index to the first ten
▼olnmes is now ready, price one dol-
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of the journal, although each year has
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Laboratory Manual of Botany

FOR THE HIGH SCHOOL

BY WILLARD N. CLUTE

In addition, it contains a glossary of difiBcuIt terms in each section, a k^
for outdoor work with trees, outlines for a study of floral ecology, and tablas
of the principal families and larger groups of the plant world.

GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS

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BOTANISTS

We are offering you at a very low price a new preparation showing clearly in
thin cross sections the different parts of Arisaematriphyllum(Jack-in-the-pulpit..

Preparation No. 1 shows the seeds before maturity.
No. 2 a section through the fruit.

No. 3 several sections through the stem showing the rings, cells, etc .^
No. 4 section through point where leaves branch from stem .
No. 5 a section through the entire bulb.

The specimens are attached to a transparent glass plate placed within a beau-
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giving the preparation an attractive finish. Height 13 inches.

Price complete as described above $4.00

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The American Botanist

DEVOTED TO ECONOMIC
AND ECOLOGICAL BOTANY

EDITED BY WILLARD N. CLUTE

Volume XVII

LIBRARY
NEW YORK
eOTANIC^X
UAkfJJti.N
JOLIET, ILLINOIS
WILLARD N. CLUTE & CO.
1911

==— ^ CONTENTS /7=^==

CONTRIBUTED ARTICLES.

New Species of Phlox. . IVillard N. Cliite and James H.

Ferriss '^^

A Sunny Crop Miss Nell McMiirray 70

Asters B. O. IVolden 100

By the River's Brim Frmik Dobbin 36

Daisies Dr. W. W. Bailey 38

Experiments with the Nodding AlHum, IVillard N. Clute 4

November Waifs Dr. W. W. Bailey 98

Proliferation in a Peach Blossom A. E. Skirling 40

Pussy Willows Dr. IV. W. Bailey 10

The Flora of the Chicago Plain IVillard N. Clufe 65

The Smooth or Meadow Phlox Willard N. Clute 97

The Spring-flowering Witch Hazel A. E. Thatcher 44

The Yucca and the Indian . . .Charles Francis Saunders 1

Root Punctured by Root Prof. Charles E. Bessey 103

The Soapweed Earl Lynd Johnston 33

REPRINTED ARTICLES.

Leaf Markings of Plants 5

Pollen Grains 41

Editorial 28. 58, 92, 124

Books and Writers 29, 60, 94, 125

SCHOOL BOTANY.

Accessory Buds 56 Leaf, Fall of the 57

Agricultural Schools 24 Names- Changing 120

Algae, A Simple Method of Naturalists, The Early 26

Growing 123 Nature, The Lack of Interest in 89

Botany Teacher, Making a.... 122 Research Work and the Teacher 25

Branches, Dimorphic 91 Scientific Bent, The 25

Fall of the Leaf 57 Seed for Study, A good 121

Information Versus Thought .. . 24 Stems, Monocot and Dicot...l20

Knowledge, First Hand 27

NOTE AND COMMENT.

Amaryllis, Meaning of ....49, 114

Bidens Beckii 106

Biennials 87

Bird-foot Violet Leaves 77

Birds as Botanists 48

Blueberry Culture 116

Cleavage Planes of Smilax ... 82

Clover. Red, Bees and 117

Color of Flowers, Perfume and 113

Composites, Variations in 83

Coreopsis, Fragrnt 104

Crops of 1910, The 14

Day Lilies, Mythology and the 22
Dogwood' Yellow-stemmed .... 104

Dying as an Adaptation 12

Elder-Berry, Experiments with 114

Flower Habits, Curious 18

Flowering Plants, Dominence of 110

Forests and Water-flow •")4

Fragrant Gentians 13

Fragrant Coreopsis 104

Fruits, Leaves on 22

Fungus, A Paint Eating 105

Gaillardia, Curious Forms of.. 82

Gardening 118

Gentians, Fragrant 13

Germination of Seeds 14

Grass Tubers 15

Hawthorn Species of 20

Hyacinth, Poisonous 81

Plybrid Tragopogons 47

Insect Pests, Imported 78

Ivy Leaves. Changes in 78

Leaves on Fruits 22

Lily, Tiger, Moving the 109

Live Oak, Storage organs of.. 87

Lumbering, Waste in 53

Milkweed, Rubber from the.... 49
Oranges, Freezing Point of... 52
Oxalis, Leaf Adjustments in.. Ill

Partridge Berries, White 51

Perfume and color of flowers 113

Phlox, Variations in 17

Plant Houses, Lath 16

Plants in Dry Air 15

Plants, Stones Moved by 16

Plants, The Radial Type of ... 55

Poison, A Remarkable 19

Poison Ivy, Taste of 102

Pollen. The function of 117

Pollination of the Yucca 79

Pollination, Sprengel and ....113

Radishes, Orientation of 80

Root Tubercles 21

Roots, Drains Clogged by .... 46
Roots, Orientation of Fibrous.. 47

Rosette Plants 110

Rubber, From the Milkweed . . 49

Saltbushes, Decorative 112

Seeds, Catapult Ill

Seeds, Germination of 14

Seeds, Government 23

Smilax, Cleavage Planes of... 83

Soap Nut, The 48

Soils- Advantages in Stirring. . 118

Soil, Sterilizing the 88

Soil, The Living 119

Storage Organs of Live Oak . . 87
Struggle for Existence The... 84

Sumac, Relatives of 53

Swamp Vegetation of Japan ... 85
Trailing Arbutus, Cultivating. . 107

Tragopogons, Hybrid 47

Trees Injured by Woodpeckers 108

Tree, The Tallest 85

Trees, The Branching of 81

Trees, Valuable 106

Tricotyledons 86

Trinomials. Linnaean 108

Tubercles, Root 21

Tubers, Grass 15

Varieties, Wild and Cultivated 17

Violet Lacking Petioles, A 51

Wahoo, The Southern 52

Water Lily a Monocot, The . . 46

Weed, Crop and 55

Wildflowers, Improving the... 19
Witch Hazel, Spring Flowering 13
Wood, Effects of Moisture on 50
Yam, The Wild Gets a Plural. . 18
Yucca, The Pollination of 79

VOLUME 17. NUMBER I

FEBRUARY, 1911

AMERICAN
BOTANIST

Devoted to Economic and Ecological Botany

CONTENTS

THE YUCCA AND THE INDIAN- ... I

BY CHARLES FRANCIS SAUNDERS

EXPERIMENTS WITH THE NODDING ALLIUM 4

BY WILLARD N. CLUTE

LEAF MARKINGS OF PLANTS ... 5
PUSSY WILLOWS .10

BY DR. W. W. BAILEY

NOTE AND COMMENT . - - - - 13

SCHOOL BOTANY 24

EDITORIAL .28

BOOKS AND WRITERS 29

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T5he Americarv Botanist

Devoted to £cological and E^conomic Botany
PUBLISHED QUARTERLY

WILLARD N. CLUTE 9^5 EDITOR.

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The American Botanist

VOL. XVII JOLIET, ILL., FEBRUARY, 1911 No. 1

LIBRARY
%Tirst came the forivard durlings of the Oprinff, NEW YOIk.:

s!> no tu drops anfi violets and daisies ivhite, BOTArSIl^-

Cfhe year's faint smiles before its hurst of mirth,
^he soft siveeta breathing babies of the earth;
Glose to her ivarm broivn bosom nestling in,
^hat the luild ivinds take laughing by the chin.

— Kemble.

THE YUCCA AND THE INDIAN.

By Charles Francis Saunders.

HE Indian was the first American Botanist, and of all our
redmen those of the arid regions of the great Southwest
have exhibited the most remarkable sagacity in exploiting the
secrets of the wild plants with which they have come in contact.
One of the United States Government investigators has record-
ed the fact that out of about one hundred and fifty known spe-
cies of plants indigenous to the Moqui Reservation in northern
Arizona — largely a desert reservation — these Indians have
utilized in one way and another, about one hundred and forty.

The remorseless Indian policy of the government, which
is de-Indianizing the Indian at a rapid rate, has already de-
stroyed so much of aboriginal practice that one has to travel far
indeed into the wool of the wild west to find Indians who de-
pend nowadays to any extent on the native plants. Fortun-
ately, however, there are some of this sort left — the most nu-
merous being the Navajos whose great reservation lies across
parts of northern Arizona and New Mexico. They live a sort
of patriarchial, pastoral life, dwellings not in villages but each

2 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

family separately from the others, moving about from place
to place as fancy or need dictates and driving before them their
bands of sheep, goats and horses, in which mainly their mater-
ial wealth consists.

Into our Arizona camp one showery morning two
Navajo shepherdesses strayed, and after enjoying our camp
fire for a while, one of them tossed something from her
blanket into the blaze and scraped some ashes over it. Two
or three more of the same things followed and were similarly
burried in the hot ashes. Each was the size and shape of a
large butternut, and greenish white in color. By and by she
withdrew them, and removing the charred skin, ate them, with
evident relish.

"What are you eating, sister?" asked Bob, our guide, in
her native tongue.

And she told him hosh-kaivn — the Navajo word for the
fruit of the widely distributed Yucca haccata, or Spanish bay-
onet, of the Southwest.

It was August, and we had passed hundreds of the fruit-
ing plants in our travels without suspecting them of edibility ;
but that day we made a business of gathering a quantity of the
fruit and at night had a hosh-kazoi roast. Bob said they had
roast apples "plum skinned ;" but to my notion, the flavor was
rather that of sweet potato. At any rate we thought them
good, and they inspired respect in us for Navajo cookery.

That, however, is only the beginning of the story of the
yucca's usefulness ; for in some measure, the yucca has, in
its time, been to the desert Indian what the date palm has been
to the Arab. Besides furnishing food (the fruit is not only
eaten green, but by some Indians is cured for winter use), the
plant has a fibre of much value as a textile material, and in pre-
Columbian times this was largely used in the weaving of gar-
ments, remains of which have been abundantly found in the
ancient clifif dwellings of the Southwest. I have myself picked

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 3

up in the debris about such places, pieces of well-woven cord-
age made of the yucca fibre, which also served in the manu-
facture of prehistoric sandals. This use of the yucca has now
been abandoned, but the foliage still supplies an important
basket material ; and in the hands of an artist, very beautiful
effects are obtained by combining in the design leaves which
have been dried green with others which have first been
bleached or browned by the weather. The narrow leaved
yucca (F. angiistifolia) which is indigenous to much of the
territory where F. haccata grows, is often cut off just below
the root crown, bunched together and dried to serve as whisks
or brooms.

The greatest contemporary usefulness of the yucca, how-
ever, lies in its long, thick root. This is highly saponaceous,
and is greatly prized both by Indians and Mexicans as a sub-
stitute for toilet soap. The roots are grubbed up, cut into
handy lengths, and crushed with an axe or stone. Rubbed up
in water they make a plentiful lather, which is excedingly
cleansing and leaves a pleasant feel to the skin. In the cere-
monial washings attendant upon the religious rites of the
Indians, the use of commercial soap would be sacrilege, only
yucca suds being permitted. Amole is the name by which
their soapy root is known throughout the Southwest, and its
value has not escaped the notice of the enterprising American
soap maker, to judge from a brand of "amole soap" which I
have seen in the shops of civilization.

Among the Navajos, the yucca seems to have some mysti-
cal import, and the plaited leaves are used as face masks in
some of their religious ceremonies. A dance, known as the
hosh-kazvn dance, is practiced among them — a night ceremony,
in which the development of the yucca plant from the barren
clump of winter leaves, through its flowering stage, to the time
of fruitage, is dramatically represented.

Pasadena, Calif.

EXPERIMENTS WITH THE NODDING ALLIUM.

By Willard N. Clute.

ONE can never tell, until he tries, what can be made out of
some wild plant that may strike his fancy. In a few
cases the best of treatment in the garden only inclines a speci-
men to grow more vigorously, but in others the flowers may
become larger, more abundant and even produce other colors
than those usually found afield. Frequently, too, single
flowers show a tendency to double when given good cultivation.

One of these wildings with which the writer has recently
been experimenting, is the nodding allium (Allium cerniium).
As it grows in its native haunts it is sufficiently decorative to
deserve a place in the flower garden but under cultivation it
takes on additional beauty as our frontispiece, from a photo-
graph, clearly shows.

In color the flowers range from a rather deep pink to
nearly white and some experiments have been carried on to
discover, if it is possible to breed up a pure race of pink
flowered plants and another of white flowered ones. At the
beginning, the fields were searched for specimens approaching
nearest our ideal and these were removed to the garden to serve
as the stock from which to breed. Seeds of the individuals
showing the deepest color and others from the paler specimens
were planted separately and when the young plants were large
enough they were transplanted to the nursery rows. The work
of transplanting any species of allium is easy : the tops may die
but there is enough nourishment stored in the tiny bulb to tide
the plant over the period of getting established.

It seems to require two years from seed before the plants
of this species become large enough to bloom. In the second
summer, then, the plants from the first experiment began to
bloom and in this there were several surprises, for both sets
of seeds had produced plants showing the two colors pink and

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 5

white. There was this difference, however, the bulbs from seed
of white flowered plants gave a great many more pale forms
than those from pink flowered plants, while the latter gave
nearly all pink flowered bulbs and among them some with
flowers of deeper pink than any we have ever seen afield. It
is apparent, then that some progress has been made in separat-
ing the two colors. Continuing the work, the seeds from the
deep pink flowers have been planted and also another lot of
seeds from the palest forms, and we are inclined to predict
that the new lot of bulbs will show greater advances in the
direction we have marked out for them than the first lot did.
The first lot of bulbs will be destroyed with the exception of
the best specimens which will be retained for breeding pur-
poses. Had we been in a hurry to have the two colors true, we
should have very carefully pollinated the plants, pollen from
white flowers on white flowers and similar treatment of the
pink flowers, and our failure to get flowers of a single color is
likely due to a mixing of the two strains in pollination, but the
work has been rather a matter of a pastime than of a desire to
achieve exact results. What we have accomplished, however,
foreshdows what may be done with the plants if one takes
them up in earnest.

LEAF MARKINGS OF PLANTS.

AMONG the most familiar objects of our fields and gardens
are such plants as the red and white clover with definite
light-colored markings on the leaflets. Another equally prom-
inent plant in gardens is the ribbon-grass (Phalaris arnndin-
acea picta), whose leaves show variegated longitudinal bands
of white and green color.

Some time ago the writer began to collect data on the
native and introduced plants of Ohio which show any definite
type of markings. The problem is rather difficult since the
markings usually disappear when plants are dried. It becomes

6 The AMERICAN BOTANIST

necessary, therefore, to become acquainted with the plants in
the living condition. During the past year a considerable num-
ber of species showing markings of various kinds have been
observed, and the list could without doubt be considerably ex-
tended.

It has usually been customary to ascribe some purposeful
effect or utility to the markings on the animal body and to the
fantastic patterns shown by many flowers. It is open to ques-
tion, however, whether such an assumption should be generally
applied. The markings on the leaves of plants are favorable
objects in this connection and may throw considerable light on
the subject.

In many species, certain individuals have the markings
while others lack them. There are probably elementary species
present which might be segregated. These forms should make
interesting material for the study of mutations and inherit-
ance. In some species the markings are only on the younger
leaves, in others only in connection with the inflorescence and
thus on the latest leaves to be developed.

The markings of the leaves studied may be grouped under
three general heads as follows :

1. Markings due to abnormal or diseased conditions,

or the so-called variegations.

2. Markings more or less accidental, depending on

some internal structure and evidently having no
relation with the development of a definite pat-
tern.
3. Markings which are of more or less definite patterns

not dependent on fundamental structures.
Under the first group mentioned above would fall such
forms as Phalaris arundinacea picta, already mentioned and
the numerous variegated species commonly cultivated in green-
houses. The white bands or spots being due to a lack of
chlorophyll in the parts. White stripes are frequently to be

The AMERICAN BOTANIST 7

observed in young plants of corn {Zea mays), and occasion-
ally the entire plant is white. These latter individuals usually
do not survive long.

The leaf-markings distinguished in the second group,
namely, those depending on some structural peculiarityj are
perfectly normal and may also be present generally or only on
some individuals. The leaves may be covered with minute
spots or dots caused by internal glands as in Hypericum
maculatum where the dots are often black or dark blue, and as
in Boebera papposa [Dysodia] where they are oval in shape
and of an orange color. In most species the dots or puncta-
tions are, however, too small to be seen by the unaided human
eye, although conspicuous under a lens. Nelumbo lutea has a
peculiar light-colored marking in the center of the large pelate
leaf that has some resemblance in outline to certain species of
beetles. The marking is purely structural and accidental, yet
were green beetles in the habit of frequenting these leaves it
might be cited .as a remarkable case of mimicry.

The most common markings of this general type are
those which follow the venation of the leaf-blade, often form-
ing reticulations. Examples of species with red veins and re-
ticulations are Hieracium venosum, Viola hirsutula, and
Rumex ohtiisifoliiis. Argemone mexicana is perhaps the
most striking example among those with white markings over
the veins. The leaves of Mitchella repens show a pale-green
narrow stipe over the midrib and Euphorbia nutans has part of
the midrib marked by a white streak. The leaves of Peramium
pubescens has a beautiful white reticulation over a dark-green
background, with occasional white blotches.

The most interesting examples of leaf-markings, how-
ever, come in the third group designated above. In the first
place, the leaf blade may be some permanent, uniform color
other than green. Oxalis rufa is a plant of this character. The

8 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

color in such cases may have a physiological use in protecting
the chlorophyll.

Numerous leaves have a silvery mottled or blotched ap-
pearance of more or less definite pattern. Among such are the
following: Hydrophyllum appendiculatum, H. macro-
phyllum, H. virginicum, Hepatica hepatica, H. acuta, and
Chimaphila maculata. Smilax glauca has the same type of
markings at least in the young condition. Cucurbita pepo
and C. maxima have prominent angular silvery patches, cover-
ing the leaf blade, in the angles of the veins. In the Hydro-
phylliims, the main variegation usually extends on each side
of the midrib and occurs in smaller spots beyond, especially at
the notches of the serrations.

Other plants having mottled or blotched leaves are Ery-
thronium americanum, E. albidum, Lamium album, L. macu-
latum, Trillium sessile and T. recurvatum. In Trillium sessile
the markings are usually very prominent, while in T.recurva-
tum they are not always visible. Arisaema triphyllum, has
beautiful reddish-brown and whitish spots on the sheathing
bracts, petioles and peduncles but the leave blades are green.

The plants of the greatest interest are those with definite,
often symmetrical patterns, which can have no relation to the
general structure. For here we come face to face with the
difficult problem of symmetrical coloration in general. Oxalis
grandis has beautiful leaves with an ornamental brown mar-
gin. Euphorbia marginata has milk-white bands on the leaves
surrounding the flower clusters. In the second example the
claim might be made that the striking color patterns around
the flowers were developed through insect selection. In the
first case such an explanation would, of course, be out of the
question. In Euphorbia maculata and E. nutans, the leaf
blades have an irregular oval dark-red spot in the center, the
latter species having in addition the white streak over part of

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 9

the midrib, as mentioned above. Some individuals of Eu-
phorbia nutans do not show the red spot.

Trifolinm pratense and T. re pens have light-colored orna-
mental markings on the three leaflets which together make a
very striking and symmetrical design. Oxalis violacea often
has a similar marking on the leaflets but it is red or purple in
color.

- Polygonum lapathifolium has a faint, irregular, etengated
spot in the middle of the leaf on the upper side while P. vir-
ginianum has somewhat similar dull reddish spots in the
center of the leaves. In Polygonum pennsylvanicum, the leaf
has a dark-colored sagitate spot in the center, the point ex-
tending in the direction of the tip of the blade. In some in-
dividuals the leaves show no markings. The leaves of Poly-
gonum persicaria have a very definite dark reddish of brown-
ish oval spot in the center. Occasionally one finds individuals
having in addition a distinct band of the same color running
along each margin. The central spot may also be slightly
sagittate in outline. Such leaves are among the most fantas-
tic in design to be observed and well deserve careful study.

It seems out of the question to attempt to explain the or-
igin and presence of ornamental and symmetrical patterns on
leaves from the standpoint of utility. We are led to the posi-
tion that there are both useful and useless structures develop-
ed in plants, the useless markings under consideration not
representing degenerations. By no exercise of the imagina-
tion could one see in these designs and patterns any use to the
possessor. They have probably come about through mutative
changes and represent elementary species. The beautiful colors
and patterns are of as much use to the plant as the beautiful
colors and forms are to a rock crystal or to a snowflake.

Because of the numerous purposeful and useful structures
and functions exhibited by organisms, biology was misled far

10 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

into the camp of the utilitarians. But the philosophy of life
has many sides and the recent discoveries in Mendelian in-
heritance, mutation and orthogenesis have revealed some of
its complexity. — John H. Schaifner in Ohio Naturalist.

PUSSY WILLOWS.

By Dr. W. W. Bailey.

NATURE is especially fond of tassels: with them she
fringes the curtains of the opening year ; with them she
adorns many of her noblest trees. In late May we see the
sturdy oaks decked out with pendant catkins ; in July the mag-
nificent chestnut bursts forth into jets and fountains of bloom.
Birches, hazels, ironwoods, sweet fern and bay berry all have
tassels. Even in winter we see this favorite inflorence in alders
and willows not, to be sure, in open flower but in pendants that
indicate the tasseled type.

The amentaceous trees usually have the two kinds of
flowers separated, either on difierent parts of the same tree or
shrub, as in alder, or on perfectly distinct plants as with wil-
lows. In other words willows are distinctly male and female,
as commonly understood. Of course modern botany has made
discoveries, too recondite to enter upon here, which would
qualify these terms. Still they remain convenient adjectives
and are likely to long endure.

When in bloom one learns to know the two kinds of cat-
kin, male or female, apart, and sometimes even at a long dis-
tance. The female willow bears more greenish tassels. Close
examination shows, too, the flask-like ovaries, standing in the
axils of silk-covered scales. These compose the cluster. If,
now, we look at the male flowers, on another plant, we find
each flower to consist of two divergent stamens, subtended by
a silky scale as in the former case. Neither kind has either
calyx or corolla but both develop abundant nectar, to which
bees, big and little, come from afar.

THE MERICAN BOTANIST 11

The term, pussy, does not apply par excellence, to any
particular willow. Several produce the silky catkins so sug-
gestive of little kittens running up the bough. As harbingers
of spring they are loved by everybody and even before they
bloom they are lovely. They vary, according to the species,
very much in size. Sometimes they are very large and dark,
of a sort of slate color shot through with flashes of red and
gold ; again they are pure silky white or a light purple or dove
color. It is only in the staminate catkins that one sees the
gleams of the rising sun. The pistillate ones, when in flower,
are of a sickly green ; when in fruit a fluffy mass of down.

Scott sings of the "wild and willowed shore" and we
naturally associate willows with stream and river banks ; per-
haps also with grave-yards and old tombstones upon which
they are often sculptured. The weeping willow has long been
an emblem of grief. We recall here the death scene of Ophelia
and the willow which

" Grows aslant a brook
That shows his hoar leaves
In the scanty stream."
What a touch of close observation is here! It is only the un-
derside of these leaves that are whitened.

Willows are so numerous and varied that if it were pos-
sible to grow them all together — a specimen of each — we
would have a little but much diversified forest. They are a
difficult study and but few persons really know them. They
are taken up by the student who loves an intricate problem of
discrimination, as one regards Carex, Potamogeton or Aster.
As a rule our native species are none of them large. Some al-
pine ones are very small. They are North Tmperate plants ex-
tending well toward the Pole and at such remote limits, as on
high mountains, are dwarfed. The willow of scripture some
consider to be the oleander which is. of course, not a willow at
all. Speaking of Salix Babylonica Dr. Asa Gray used to say

12 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

that "If the Jews hung their harps upon it they must have been
Jew's-harps" as the branches are so very brittle.

The bark of willows is stringy and tough and, as every-
body knows the twigs make good whistles. It contains a bitter
alkaloid, sal^cine, sometimes employed as a substitute for
quinine. The wood is soft, smooth and light and is used for
many purposes.

Providence, R. I.

Dying as an Adaptation. — More than half the plants
of the world are annuals ; they spring up, reach maturity,
flower, ripen their seeds and die, all within the space of a single
year. Conditions, however, were not always thus. Time was
when most of the plants were perennials and in the light
that this fact throws upon evolution, dying itself seems an
adaptation. The first plants undoubtedly lived in the water in
regions warm enough to escape injury from the cold, but the
ever increasing struggle with other plants for place, in time
drove some of the more vigorous to take up a place in the wet
lands and finally to spread to colder and drier regions. Here
the problem of how to escape the cold of winter or the drouth
of desert regions was encountered, and was solved by the
simple expedient of dying. Before dying, however, the plant
shut parts of itself up in its seeds so that though the individual
might not survive, the race is sure to do so. Of course
those plants that failed to form seeds and were not sturdy
enough to endure the winter left no descendants to carry on
the family line. In addition to the annuals there is also a large
number of plants that simulate annuals to the extent of dis-
appearing from the surface of the earth at the approach of cold
or drouth, but somewhere in the soil the living parts may be
found cunningly concealed in bulbs, tubers, corms and root-
stocks.

Spring Flowering Witch Hazel. — In a recent number
of the Kezi' Bulletin mention is made of a new witch-hazel from
Missouri that flowers in spring like the Asiatic species of this
genus. The specimens were sent from the Arnold Arboretum,
but it is surprising that we must get our information via Eu-
rope. If any of our readers know this interesting plant we
shall be glad to hear more of it.

Fragrant Gentians. — Have just returned, this 18th
day of December, from a short walk in the Texas woods,
bringing with me blossoms of closed gentian, fresh and per-
fect — and two of them fragrant. A sweet odor, honey-like,
yet distinctively its own. Referring to Burroughs on my re-
turn to see if he had included it in his list of fragrant wild
flowers I find gentian is not there. In his "Nature and the
Poets" it is noticeable how a few degrees of latitude will put
the most careful assertions in error; for our gentian season
here in East Texas begins in October and ends only with the
year, holding out long after goldenrod, turtle-head and other
fall flowers are gone. Witch-hazel keeps season with the
gentian; but lasts no later here in the piney woods. Has the
fragrance of the closed gentian been noted before? And can
some Texas reader tell me if the fringed gentian has been
found in the state. — F. G. Kenesson. [Small's "Southern

14 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

Flora" does not credit the closed gentian {G. andrezvsii) with
a range as far south as Texas. It is reported to extend only
to Georgia and Missouri. Another species which might be
mistaken for it is the soapwort gentian {G. saponaria) which
extends to Louisiana. We hope our correspondent will en-
deavor to discover the identity of his plant. If it is the true
closed gentian the range has thus been considerably extended.
If not, then the fragrance can be accounted for as character-
istic of some other species. — Ed.]

The Crops of 1910. — Last year the farmers of this
country produced 3000 million bushels of corn, 700 million
bushels of wheat, 1000 million bushels of oats, 328 million
bushels of potatoes, 512 thousand tons of cane sugar, 158
million bushels of barley, 32 million bushels of rye, 15 million
bushels of flax seed and like quantities of several other crops
not to mention sufficient vegetation to support all the wild ani-
mals including insects and birds. And all this was made by
the plants from the carbon-dioxide in the air and water from
the soil and put together in the green cells of the plant by the
wonderful energy derived from sunlight.

Germination of Seeds. — An old proverb well known to
the farmer runs "one year's seed, seven year's weed," mean-
ing that if the weed crop is allowed to go to seed one year, "t
will take seven years to get rid of the plants that will spring
up as a result. MIost gardeners know that many good seeds
even when carefully sown, do not all come up the first year.
In some cases this delayed germination has been shown to be
due to the fact that the seed-coats exclude the oxygen necessary
for this process and in others, such as the nelumbo and canna
the hard outer coat or testa may exclude water also. The
seeds of peaches, plums and nut trees in general often do not
come up until the second year unless planted in autumn so that
the frost can help in splitting the hard shell. There are doubt-

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 15

less many other seeds that require considerable time to com-
plete their development even after they have fallen from the
parent plant and thus may fail to appear promptly when
planted.

Grass Tubers. — Recently there were sent to the Depart-
ment of Agriculture in Washington, some curious subterran-
ean organs of a grass-plant which from the place of growth is
inferred to be the reed grass {Cinna arundinacea) . These
organs appear like small tubers with several constrictions
forming a necklace-like growth quite unlike anything known in
the grass family. An examination of the structure of these
objects shows that they consist of the shortened and greatly
enlarged basal joints of the stem, the constrictions being
formed by the modes. The specimens, although likened to
tubers are more properly regarded as corms, similar to those
of the crocus and gladiolus, but with constrictions that are
lacking in the more familiar plants.

Plants in Dry Air. — One instinctively reasons that in
a warm climate almost any plant should be able to grow if
given sufficient moisture, but according to a writer in Plant
World there are other factors that may limit growth. In the
warmer parts of Arizona the extremely dry air may call upon
the plants for moisture faster than the roots can supply it and
in consequence the leaves wilt and become "fired" at the tips.
In the hottest parts of Arizona neither rhubarb nor horse-
radish will grow and the same is true of many of our common
plants including the dandelion and plantain. Even corn, which
farther north is reputed to love hot weather, fails to make a
crop in Arizona, though freely irrigated, if planted late enough
to be overtaken by the heated term with its dry air. Many
of the plants of more northern regions which cannot survive in
full sunlight grow very well in lath houses. The reason they
cannot stand the full sun is because their leaves are not pro-

16 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

tected by an epidermis of sufficient thickness. One has but to
recall the typical sun plants of the tropics to see that all of them
have coarse heavy foliage from which moisture does not read-
ily evaporate.

Stones Moved by Plants. — It is well known that plants
have had a share in shaping this planet rending the rocks by
means of their roots and dissolving the particles of soil by the
acids they excrete, but cases in which plants actually contri-
bute to the building of the land by carrying stones seem little
known to the botanist. That this actually occurs is vouched for
by Shaler who reports certain "rolling beaches" near Cape Ann
to be due entirely to this action of plants. It seems that along
certain coasts where the bottom consists of small stones, var-
ious sea-weeds grow, finding the stones to which they are
firmly attached desirable for anchorage. When storms occur,
however, the waves drag both the sea-weed and stones away
from the bottom and cast them up on the beach. Here the
sea-weed speedily dies, and the stones are added to the beach.

Lath Plant Houses. — Glass houses for the protection
of plants during the colder parts of the year are too common
to be remarkable, but houses for protecting plants from the
heat of summer are still so rare in some sections as to be
curiosities. A few years ago when the cultivation of Sumatra
tobacco was being tried out in New England some entire farms
were covered with cheese-cloth screens under which the crop
was cultivated. Everybody cannot afford a greenhouse and
many of those who can do not wish to be bothered with the
care of one but anybody who owns a garden can have a plant
house for protecting the delicate woodland species. It is built
out of common laths nailed to any sort of supporting frame-
work the laths being separated an inch or so from one another.
In such a house, the early spring wildlings linger a long while
after their sisters in the fields and woods are gone since they

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 17

are not only protected from the boisterous winds of the early
part of the year but from the hot noonday sun as well. In
such a house fems retain their delicate beauty, pansies bloom
through the summer, and the bleeding heart, Dutchman's
breeches, and trilliums come to a perfection seldom seen in the
open.

Variation in Phlox. — Phlox Drummondi is a native
of Texas and not very variable, so far as known, only pink,
purple and red varieties existing wild. It was introduced into
cultivation about seventy-five years ago. There is now a be-
wildering array of color varieties both with entire and with
fringed petals and in the so-called star of Quedlinburg varieties
the central tooth of the fringed petals is prolonged into a lobe
as long or longer than the petal. In the wild form there is ap-
parently no hint of such a character. It ought to be no dif-
ficult task to repeat the evolution of these forms under test
conditions and thus get a full record of what takes place.
— Science.

Wild and Cultivated Varieties. — I well recall that
when I first began to study plants I promptly found about a
dozen species of red clover — at least they were different from
each other. It took a long time to teach me that in plants
there are differences and differences, some of which should be
taken seriously and others ignored. In general I was taught
that any differences that existed in closely related cultivated
plants were to be ignored, but in wild plants they would us-
ually have to be considered. It is really very fortunate for the
cultivated plants that systematic botanists have not taken their
differences seriously, otherwise we would have chaos indeed.
It is unfortunate that the conservatism which most systematic
botanists exhibit toward cultivated plants should not be ex-
hibited as well toward wild plants. If more attention had been
given to the cultivated plants, think what a vast host of re-
puted wild species would have escaped the pangs of christen-

18 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

ing. There used to be hope that after a while all the species
would be described — so that systematic botanists could devote
themselves to deeper studies. But, alas, it seems only neces-
sary to make finer distinctions to reveal a wondrous display
of so-called species where none was seen before. — C V. Piper
in Science.

Curious Flower Habits. — Miss Nell McMurray notes
that Medeola Virginiana has a habit of holding its flower
buds and fruit above the upper whorl of leaves, while the
blooming flower never fails to hang its head beneath them.
To this it may be added that the same habit runs through the
Trillium family, to which Medeola is a close ally. Trillium
cernuum is named from this habit and so is T. declinatum
while the name of T. erectum would indicate the exact reverse
of this condition it is a matter of ordinary observation that it,
like the others hangs beneath the leaves. Several of the others
though borne above the leaves could scarcely be called erect.

The Wild Yam Gets a Plural. — Those who once
thought they knew the wild yam {Dioscorea villosa) have
another guess coming. As late as 1909 when the new
"Grays' Manual" was issued there was supposed to be but a
single species with possibly one variety. Even Small's "South-
ern Flora" which appears to have listed every plant that looked
different, fails to distinguish even a variety, but a recent publi-
cation of the Government describes no less than five species
and one variety. The reputed species are glaiica, quaternata,
paniculata, hirticaulis and Floridana. The species supposed
to grow in North Eastern America is D. paniculata. As usual
in name-tinkering the specific name villosa by which the plant
has always been known has been thrown on the scrap heap.
The root-stock of Dioscorea is used in medicine and it is said
that there is considerable difference in the medicinal properties
of the various forms. If so, we may become resigned to the

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 19

splitting up of this old and familiar species in the interests of
the physician when we would object to the same proceeding in
the interests of the species-maker.

Improving our Wildflowers. — Now and then there is
introduced into cultivation some wild-flower that is scarcely
changed from the form and color it possessed in its native
haunts, but since probably all plants are susceptible of greater
beauty when influenced by careful cultivation, we usually find
the introduced plants to be better than the originals. That all
plants can be so improved appears to have been only recently
understood by the great majority of plant growers. One has
only to call to mind the phloxes, snap dragons, petunias, can-
nas, gladioluses, and dahlias that grew in grandmother's
garden to realize how greatly these plants have been improved
during the past few decades. These successes have caused the
gardener to look for new subjects with which to experiment
and we may expect great things in the future.

A Remarkable Poison. — Advertisers of patent medi-
cines are fond of the statement that their remedies are "purely
vegetable" with the added implication that this maks them
quite harmless, but as a matter of fact, our most deadly poi-
sons are products of the plant world. Among these may be
mentioned hydrocyanic acid, aconite, belladonna, strychnine,
and morphine, while the toxins excreted by bacteria are in
some cases known to be far more deadly than the venom of the
most poisonous snake. The deadliest poison of all, however, is
now said to be derived from the common castor bean of our
gardens and from which castor-oil is produced. The seeds
have long been known to be poisonous but the poison exists in
very minute quantities in single seeds. When this is obtained
in a pure state its terrible death dealing power is apparent. It
has been estimated that a single gramme of the poison — about
as much as could be heaped on the point of a pocket knife — is

20 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

enough to kill a million and a half of guinea-pigs. Another
curious property of this poison is that if a dose too weak to
kill is given first, the strength can be gradually increased until
the subject can take, without ill effects, enough to kill ten
thousand others not accustomed to it. In the blood of such
immunized animals an antitoxin is formed, similar to that
formed when the body is attacked by bacteria, and this anti-
toxin can be used to render other animals immune. It is cer-
tainly a strange thing that one of the flowering plants should
possess properties so similar to those extremely simple or-
ganisms, the bacteria.

Species of Hawthorn. — In the 6th edition of Gray's
Manual exactly ten species of our native hawthorns (Cra-
taegas) are given for the North Eastern States, but Edward
L. Greene asserts that there are a thousand species in this
region and the last edition of the above mentioned Manual
makes some concessions toward this idea by giving a list of
sixty-five forms which it recognizes as valid species. It is cer-
tain, however, that there are not even sixty-five species in the
sense that the older botanists recognized species, for they were
quite familiar with the plants of the region and would have
been sure to name at least the major part of the number in-
dicated. The fact is the modern race of botanists has not suc-
ceeded in discovering new species in places familiar to the
plant collectors of former days. What it has done is simply
to put together a new definition of species which will enable it
to name the varieties of the older botanists in a new category.
Under these conditions, it will not be surprising to find new
species being described in any genus. All that is necessary is
to make your distinctions fine enough and a crop of new spe-
cies is the inevitable result. This has been so in Antennaria,
Sisyrinchium, Pmiicum, Viola and many others, and the only
reason that every genus has not similarly expanded is because
no botanical segregator has attacked them. At the same time,

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 21

the varieties of lettuce, cabbage, radish and other vegetables
produced by the gardener are regarded as not worth attention
from a true scientist. Nevertheless the only difference be-
tween the more recent species of the botanist and the new
"creations" of the gardener is that one is the product of
natural selection alone and the other of natural selection aided
by the art of the cultivator. One may be useless, the other
never is. In making this distinction between the useful and
useless, the species-maker is scarcely in an enviable position,
but it is doubtless far better for him to busy himself with use-
less things than to interfere in things of more value.

Root Tubercles. — That practically all species of the
Leguminosae or pea family have small modules on their roots
inhabited by bacteria, is well known. These bacteria have
formed a sort of partnership with the higher plant and in ex-
change for certain plant foods which they receive, take the
free nitrogen out of the air and turn it over to their part-
ner. In this manner the legumes are able to grow in soils de-
ficient in nitrogen, and thus find a favorable habitat in regions
where other plants have difficulty in existing. While other
plants, so far as known, do not have the co-operation of these
helpful bacteria, many have arrangements "just as good."
For instance, a large number of our forest trees have myco-
rhiza on their roots. These are essentially fungus strands that
inhabit the outer layers of cells in the roots and act somewhat
after the manner of root hairs in other plants. A few other
plants develop "root-tubercles." These in appearance ^re
much like the nodules that appear on the roots of the legumes
only larger, and anyone who cares to see them may do so by
digging up the nearest plant of New Jersey tea (Ceanothus) .
These are inhabited by a fungus, which has the reputation of
getting nitrogen from the air like the clover bacteria and this
seems borne out by the fact that plants with these root tubercles

22 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

can live in regions almost as forbidding as can the legumes.
Some whole families of plants seem equipped with these tuber-
cles, among which may be mentioned the various species of
Ceanothiis, the alders, the bayberries (Myrica) and the buf-
falo berries {Shepherdia) and Elaeagnus.

Leaves on Fruits. — A correspondent mentions finding
a large berry of Mitchella repens with a tiny, perfect leaf grow-
ing on either side of its two eyes and asks if sprouting seeds
sent out the leaves from miniature plants. This curious oc-
currence is not due to sprouting seeds, as surmised but is a
natural abnormality if one may so express it ; that is, it is an
occurrence quite in line with the laws of plant structure. In
the partridge berry ( Mitchella) the twin flowers are borne
upon a compound fruit which must consist not only of the
ovary but part of the flower stalk as well. A flower, or flower
cluster either, for that matter, is essentially a transformed
branch ; so the leaves, which normally grow from branches,
are not out of place when appearing on such fruits though
nature rarely makes such disposition of them.

Mythology and the Day Lilies. — If there is a group
of plants anywhere that is better known under its generic name
than that of the Funkias or day lilies, that group does not come
to mind as we write. They are natives of China, Japan and
Eastern Siberia but for more than a hundred years have been
familiar garden plants in Europe and America. There is
scarcely an old fashioned garden in the North Temperate zone
without its clump of plantain or day lilies. In the early days
of plant study several attempts to attach different names to the
group were made but the nomenclature soon settled down to
Funkia and thus the plants have since borne. But well-settled
names are nothing to the name-tinker, if there is a chance to
substitute for them "something just as good," hence we find
an officer of the New York Botanical Garden proposing in a

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 23

recent number of Torreya that this group of plants hereafter
be called Niohe. It seems that a botanist named Salisbury
suggested this latter name for the plants just 99 years ago,
while Funkia was not proposed until five years later. For
some unknown reason Funkia was adopted instead of Niohe
and one would naturally think that after using it for nearly a
century there could be no very great need of a change. In
Mythology, it will be remembered, Niobe was the daughter of
the unfortunate Tantalus who was doomed forever to forego
his most cherished desires. How appropriate it would be for
gardeners and botanists generally to turn our name-tinker
into a modern Tantalus be refusing absolutely to adopt his new
name!

Government Seeds. — About this time of the year the
majority of voters have their attention called to the approach-
ing season for gardening by the appearance in their mail of
packets of common garden and flower seeds sent under the
frank of their congressman. This pleasant method of re-
minding voters that their representative is still in existence and
hopes for another election some time in the future, costs the
national government much money annually, and while the
average gardener prefers to buy good seeds from reliable seeds-
men, our congressmen would feel lost without this time hon-
ered sop to their constituents. In 1910 more than sixty mil-
lion packets of seeds were sent out, about eleven million being
flower seeds. Each senator and member of congress receives
twenty thousand packets of vegetable seeds and two thousand
packets of flower seeds. According to Plant World one mem-
ber of congress sent out seven times as many packets as there
were men, women and children in his district. The govern-
ment annually sends out many meritorious plants and seeds to
those who can use them, but these are not to be confused with
the seed distribution of congress.

SCHOOL BOTANY

Agricultural Schools. — As a nation we are fast get-
ting over the idea that anybody can succeed at farming. The
business of getting the most out of the soil in the way of crops,
is now known to be a matter of much science, and high schools,
colleges and universities are rapidly adding agriculture to the
list of courses. In 1908 there were 545 institutions giving
such courses, but in the past two years the number has nearly
doubled being now 875. Thirty-eight high schools have al-
ready introduced agricultural courses and the next few years
seem destined to see many more such institutions give atten-
tion to this subject.

Information Versus Thought. — How do you yourself
stand on this question? Is your idea of a good student, that
of a good "receptacle?" Do you regard your instructors as
useful grain-hoppers whose duty it is to gather kernels of wis-
dow from all sources and direct them into your receptive mind ?
Are you content to be a sort of psychic Sacculina, a vegetative
animal, your mind a vast sack of two apertures, one for the
incurrent and the other for the outcurrent of predigested ideas ?
If so, all your mental organs of combat and locomotion will
atrophy. Do you put your faith in reading or in book knowl-
edge? If so, you should know that not a five foot shelf of
books nor even the ardent reading of a fifty foot shelf aided by
a prodigious memory will give you that enviable thing called
culture because the yard-stick of this precious quality is not
what you take in, but what you give out and this, from the sub-
tile chemistry of your brain, must have passed through a

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 25

mental metabolism of your own so that you have lent some-
thing to it. To be a man of culture you need not be a man of
creative power because such men are few, they are bom and
not made ; but you must be a man of some degree of centrifugal
force, of individuality, of critical opinion, who must make
over what is read into conversation and into life. — Dr. H. F.
Oshorn in Science.

The Scientific Bent. — The man who is born to zeal
for experiment or observation can not be put down. He is
always at it. Somewhere or somehow^ he will come to his
own. No man ever adds much to the sum of human know-
ledge because the road is made easy for him. Leisure, salary,
libraries, apparatus, problems, appreciation — none of these
will make an investigator out of a man who is willing to be
anything else. There is human nature among scientific men,
and human nature is prone to follow the lines of least resist-
ance. It takes orginality, enthusiasm, abounding life, to turn
any man from what is easily known to that which is knowable
only through the sweat of the intellect. — David Star Jordan
in Science.

Research Work and the Teacher. — Our science
courses are still very imperfectly adapted to their constituen-
cies, and we need a study of the reasons and remedies therefor.
We have great need for a discovery of better ways of present-
ing and demonstrating important matters, for more effective
and simpler experiments, for more illustrative methods and
materials. Again, the extreme specialization of modern
science and the consequent inaccessibility of most of its new re-
sults to general users of knowledge make vastly valuable the
preparation and publication of such expositions of important
botanical subjects as combine literary elegance, pedagogical
force and scientific accuracy; and the teacher who does this
work well comes very close to the investigator. The com-

26 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

munity needs not only the discoverers of new knowledge whose
best environment is the university, but also the interpreters of
knowledge whose environment is the college. Again there is
a great field for original study in the investigation of local
floras from the natural history standpoint. The construction
of a local flora in which the plants are not simply listed but also
described ecologically, while the whole subject is presented in
attractive literary from, would not only realize for the teacher
the real value of abstract investigation but it would constitute
a work of marked scientific value while fitting perfectly with
the work of teaching. — W. F. Ganong in The Teaching
Botanist.

The Early Naturalists. — These men of the old school
were lovers of nature. They knew nature as a whole, rather
than as a fragment or a succession of fragments. They were
not made in Germany or anywhere else and their work was
done because they loved it, because the impulse within would
not let them do otherwise than work, and their training, partly
their own, partly responsible to their source of inspiration,
was made to fit their own purposes. If these men went to
Germany as many of them did, it was for inspiration, not for
direction ; not to sit through lectures, not to dig in some far-
off corner of knwledge, not to stand through a doctor's ex-
amination in a dress coat with a major and two minors, not
to be encouraged magna cum laude to undertake a scientific
career. The career was fixed by heredity and early environ-
ment. Nothing could head them off and they took orders
from no one as to what they should, or what they should not
reach as conclusions. They did not work for a career — many
of them found none — but for the love of the work. They
were filled with a rampant, exurberant individuality which
took them wherever they pleased to go. They followed no
set fashions in biology. Such methods as they had were their

The AMERICAN BOTANIST 27

own, wrought out by their own strength. They were depend-
ent on neither Hbraries nor equipment though they struggled
for both. Not faciHties for work, but endeavor to work, if
need be without faciHties, gave them strength and their
strength was the strength of ten. — David Starr Jordan in
Science.

First Hand Knowledge. — If you purpose to be a natur-
ahst, get as soon as you can at the objects themselves; if you
would be an artist, go to your models ; if a writer, take your
authors at first hand and after you have wrestled with the texts
and reached the full length of your own fathom line, then take
the fathom line of the critic and reviewer. Do not trust to
mental peptones. Cairry the independent, iniquisitive, sceptical
and even the rebellious spirit of the graduate school well down
into undergraduate life and even into school life. If you are
a student, force yourself to think independently; if a teacher
compel your youths to express their own minds. In listening
to a lecture, weigh the evidence as presented, cultivate a polite
scepticism, not affected but genuine, keep a running fire of in-
terrogation points in your mind and you will finally develop
a mind of your own. Do not climb that mountain of learn-
ing in the hope that when you reach the summit you will be
able to think for yourself; think for yourself while you are
climbing. — Dr. H. F. Osborn in Science.

C7=— XV EDITORIAL rr=—^

=D G ^

The consideration of a new postal bill which among other
things proposes to raise the mailing rates on magazines has
caused considerable anger, anxiety and excitement among pub-
lishers generally during the past few weeks. At present the
immediate danger seems averted, but still threatened. If the
postoffice department was to be judged solely by its effects up-
on publishers one would be forced to conclude that its object is
to bother them as much as possible. Several recent rulings have
been of the kind called class legislation, wherein rules have
been made that effects only part of the publications. Thus the
ruling that publications sent to subscribers in arrears must pay
a higher rate of postage on such copies was not applied to all
alike. Monthlies and quarterlies can extend the time of delin-
quents only a few months, others have a year in which their
subscribers may pay up, and while a majority of publishers
now stop subscriptions as soon as they expire, this ruling of
the government is, in effect, an attempt to tell publishers how
long they may extend credit to their patrons. If an old sub-
scriber goes to Europe for a holiday and forgets to pay for the
magazine before departing, the publisher must cut him off the
list or pay more postage on such copies ; if he falls ill and is un-
able to attend to renewals, no consideration may be shown him.
How this proposition works out is shown by the report for the
last postal year, where four thousand two hundred and twenty-
nine publications are reported to have died in a single year.
Indeed many of these never had a fair start for more than
eleven thousand were denied the second class privilege in the
past decade. Should congress pass the proposed law increas-
ing the rate of postage, magazines generally will simply raise
the subscription price to their readers. The proposed law

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 29

therefore threatens every one who subscribes for the maga-
zines. Readers are therefore urged to watch legislation of
this kind and to protest to their senators and congressmen
when hostile action threatens.

BOOKS AND WRITERS.

Readers of this magazine who have followed Dr. W. W.
Bailey in his entertaining articles on plants, may have guessed
from the manner of treatment that the author is a poet, and
such proves to be the case. But those of us who have known of
Dr. Bailey's facility in verse-making for many years were
nevertheless surprised at the versatility displayed in the hand-
some volume entitled "Poems" that appeared from the press of
the Preston and Rounds Company last year. About half the
book consists of occasional poems read at various gatherings
of his college fraternity and therefore not of general interest,
though it is understood that the desire to have these poems in
convenient form was the main reason for the appearance of the
book. The interest of the botanical student in the book will
center in the nearly fifty poems on various phases of nature,
and in the additional poems of sentiment and childhood which
compose the volume. Dr. Bailey's favorite flowers are here
"embalmed in verse" as some other poet has said. Glancing
through the list of titles we find the houstonia, bloodroot,
anemone, painted cup, gentian and other common but inspir-
ing flowers ; in fact Dr. Bailey seldom goes far from home for
his subjects, having that enviable quality of being able to find
interest in even common things. Only a small edition of the
book was printed, and those who hope to get a copy should lose
no time in ordering.

Any teacher of botany who cannot get his money's worth
out of Ganong's "The Teaching Botanist" must be a peculiar
individual. For ten years or more the book has been a strong

30 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

inspiration toward a better presentation of the subject of
botany and the new second edition which has recently appeared
will but emphasize this point of view. Not that the reviewer
expects all teachers to agree with everything in the book;
there are a good many things that teachers who think for
themselves may have a different opinion about and the re-
viewer himself dissents here and there but the subject is
handled in such a common sense way and is so lacking in a
spirit of dictation that the few faults are not conspicuous. In
the list of publications, an important botanical magazine is not
named nor is Howell's volume on the "Flora of North
West America." In our opinion a good many improvements
could be made in the course of study outlined. We would not
defer a study of cells until seeds, roots, buds, and stems had
been studied, nor would we use horse-beans and morning glory
seeds, while so much better material is to be had. In the out-
line for the spore-plants, the "type study" method is still in
evidence though this is fast giving way elsewhere to a study of
evolution as illustrated by various species from algae to pines.
In the endeavor to make the book a practical monograph on the
teaching of botany, the second edition has been greatly ex-
tended and contains nearly two hundred pages more than the
first edition. Notwithstanding this it sells for the same price
— $1.25 net. It is published by the Macmillan Co.

A second revised edition of Vinal's "Laboratory and
Field Studies in Botany" has recently appeared from the press
of P. Blakiston's Son & Co., of Philadelphia. This is designed
largely for the analysis of flowers such as still persists in parts
of New England as an echo of the old courses in botany built
upon Gray's series of text books. While the reviewer fails to
find much of value in such a course, he must add that the
blanks for this purpose in the book under discussion are both
handy and complete. The most valuable feature is found in

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 31

the questions on seeds, roots, leaves and the like that are de-
signed to prepare the student for work in analyzing flowers.
These are quite suggestive and founded upon right methods,
requiring the pupil to think for himself. The book is bound
in paper and costs 60 cents net.

The average man, if he thinks of the subject at all, is
likely to class the landscape gardener with the man who sods
the lawn or spades up the back garden, but appreciative folk
know him as an artist who paints his pictures with trees,
bushes and flowers on a canvas of broad sweeping greensward.
Such a man points to great public parks or less pretentious
though no less beautiful private places as evidences of his skill
and his name is associated with the work exactly as is the name
of the architect with some magnificent building. In "Land-
scape Gardening Studies" recently issued by the John Lane
Company, New York, the author, Samuel Parsons describes
some twenty masterpieces of his own, among them the rehabili-
tation of Central Park, New York, a seaside park at Coney
Island, the Russell Sage home at Sag Harbor, and the colonial
gardens at Van Cortland Park, New York. There are also
plans for cemeteries, playgrounds, private estates, school
grounds and other plantings. In discussing each feature of
these plans the author explains all the operations needed to
bring them to perfection, and those studying or practicing this
difficult art will find many helpful suggestions in the book. It
is published at $2.00 net., postage 10 cents.

A British book by Harold C. Long on the "Common
Weeds of Farm and Garden" will make interesting reading on
this side of the Atlantic not only for the individuals who
take the principal parts in the "Controversy with Weeds" as the^
author humorously dubs agriculture, but for botanists as well.
An excursion through the book shows that British and Ameri-
can weeds are pretty much alike as we can well understand,

32 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

since we caught most of our noxious species from Europe ; in
fact, a careful examination fails to locate a single native Ameri-
can among the bad weeds of Great Britain. Evidently the strug-
gle for place among the foreign species is too strenuous to per-
mit the fighters among our natives to get a footing. There
are more than four hundred pages in the book and every phase
of the weed nuisance is thoroughly discussed. There are
chapters on the way weeds are spread, and general preventive
measures given after which the plants are taken up under such
heads as weeds of arable land, improvement of grassland and
poisonous plants. The plants are described and the measures
likely to eradicate them indicated. With us in America, some
of the latter would doubtless be disregarded if we found some
of the weeds in our fields ; for instance the red poppy, fox
glove, heather, pansy, and adder's-tongue fern are included
with the weeds. The very thorough way in which the subject
is handled will make this book a very useful one to anybody
with weeds to fight. It is issued by the F. A. Stokes Co., New
York.

Messrs. Ginn & Co., have recently issued "Domesticated
Animals and Plants" by Davenport; the D. Van Nostrand
Company announce "Ancient Plants" by M. C. Stopes; Stokes
have published "Gardens Near the Sea" by Lounsberry; and
the Sturgis and Walton Company have issued "Children's
Gardens for Pleasure, Health and Education."

Our Ferns in Their Haunts

By Willard N. Clute.

A complete and authoritative account of the ferns of Eastern
America giving the life history, habits, common names, folk lore and
exact scientific descriptions of every species. Special attention has
been given to the rare and little known species and to the points for
identifying those that are much alike. 225 illustrations of rootstocks,
fronds, pinnae, sori, indusia, etc., make everything plain to the begin-
ner. An illustrated key enables even the novice to name his speci-
mens. There is no other fern book so useful or so comprehensive.
Octavo, 333 pages, bound in cloth. Price, $2.15 postpaid.

The Fern Allies of North America

By Willard N. Clute.

A companion volume to "Our Ferns in their Haunts," and treat-
ing of all the allied fernworts of the United States and Canada in the
same comprehensive and detailed manner. The only volume in the
English language devoted entirely to the scouring rushes, club-
mosses, selaginellas, pepperworts, water-ferns, quillworts and the like.
Seven keys to the groups make identification easy. Every species
carefully illustrated from authentic specimens. Octavo, 250 pages,
150 illustrations and 8 colored plates, bound in cloth. Price, $2.15
postpaid.

Laboratory Botany for the High School

By Willard N. Clute.

A new and unique manual founded upon the inductive method and
designed to make the student think as well as remember. It covers
a full year of botany and presents in the second half a connected
study of evolution in the plant world. Has a glossary of difficult
terms in each section, outlines for the study of trees, floral ecology
and other field work, and an extended list of questions intended to
make the work of the teacher easy. It is absolutely flexible and may
be extended or condensed as the individual teacher is inclined. Full
directions for collecting and preserving the materials used. Has al-
ready been accorded a wide use and is steadily increasing. Individual
students wishing to take up the study will find the book invaluable.
Cloth, 177 pages, 75 cents postpaid.

The Fern Collectors* Guide

By Willard N. Clute.

A small volume of a size to fit the pocket giving the beginner
directions for finding and naming his specimens and making an her-
barium. Has an illustrated key to all the species, a complete glos-
sary, and a check list of the ferns with space for notes. Cloth, 60
pages, sent postpaid for 54 cents.

The American Botanist or The Fern Bulletin will be sent 1 year
with an order from the above list for 50 cents additional.

Address all orders to

Willard N. Clute and Company
Joliet, Illinois.

School Science and Mathematics

The Journal for all Progressive Science and Mathematics Teachers

It gives new ideas and methods of scientific and mathematical instructions —
practical articles on the teaching of science and mathematics. Suggestive, illus-
trated descriptions of apparatus, experiments, laboratory equipment and plans.
Short, newsy, helpful notes on the progress in science and mathematics. Speak
to your teacher, friends about it. Get them to subscribe. Supscriptions received
at any time. Yearly subscriptions, $2.00.

SCHOOL SCIENCE and MATHEMATICS

2059 East Seventy-second Place Chicago, Illinois

THE NATURE-STUDY REVIEW

(Journal of the American Nature-Study Society) will continue during 1911 its
SPECIAL TEACHING NUMBERS of timely interest and permanent value

January — City Nature-Study May — Manual of Nature-Study Literature

February — Tree Studies September — Autumn Flowers and Weeds

March — Calendar Studies October — Children's Pets

April — Aquatic Studies November — Farm Studies

December — Health Number
We can still furnish copies (at 15c) of the most popular issues of 1910, as
follows:

MARCH— Bird Study (with 18 photographs)

APRIL— Garden Number

MAY — Rural Number (with 2 colored plates of birds)

SEPTEMBER — Insect Studies (copious illustrations, including color

plate of, American butterflies)
NOVEMBER— Harvest Studies DECEMBER— Weather Studies

SUBSCRIPTION, $1.00 per year (This covers membership in the Amierican
Nature-Study Society) Canadian postage 10 cents extra; Foreign, 20c; Single
copy 15c.

Addreaa: NATURE-STUDY REVIEW, URBANA, ILL.

Nature Education and Recreation

For Boys and Girls: Per Year For Everybody:

Nature and Science (of St. Nicholas Magazine) $3.00 The Spirit of Nature Study (222 pes. ills.) $1.00

For Men and Women: Walking: A Fine Art (164 pgs. ills.) • - $1.50

The Guide to Nature (monthly, illustrated) _1.00 Three Kingdoms— the handbook of the AA $ .75

$4.00 For Plants:

Both for one year, $3.00. Sample at either, 10c. ^^'^^ ""*"«"* '«'"^*^' ^" ^''' P"^'^^'"' ^^*-

For You (to aid and be aided):

For Teachers: Postpaid The Agassiz Association (Popular Nature Sscisiy).

How NatureSludy Should beTaught(203 pgs.) $1.00 For Correspondents (to wii!e for further inform&lion):

ED^VARD F. BIGELO^¥

ARCADIA: SOUND BEACH, CONNECTICUT

VOLUME 17, NUMBER 2 WHOLE NUMBER 89

MAY, 1911

AMERICAN
BOTANIST

Devoted to Economic and Ecological Botany

CONTENTS

THE SOAP WEED 33

BY EARL LYND JOHNSTON

BY THE RIVER'S BRIM - - ... 36

BY FRANK DOBBIN

DAISIES 38

BY DR. W. W. BAILEY

PROLIFERATION IN A PEACH BLOSSOM - 40

BY A. E. SHIRLING

POLLEN GRAINS 41

THE SPRING FLOWERING WITCH HAZEL 44

NOTE AND COMMENT 46

SCHOOL BOTANY 56

EDITORIAL 58

BOOKS AND WRITERS 60

„tmmmmKmx^aaKtmcm^Ktm0!vamaammKammmm^^mamamm^KmaasBmmaBmaKmmiammB]i^uKwtammammmmmau^mmm^

20 CENTS A COPY -- 75 CENTS A YEAR

WILLARD N. CLUTE & COMPANY

JOLIET, ILLINOIS

'Bhe America^rv Botanist

Devoted to Ideological and Economic Botany
PUBLISHED QUARTERLY

WILLARD N. CLUTE 9^5 EDITOR-

SUBSCRIPTIONS.—This magazine is published on the 20th of February,
May, August and November. Subscription price: 75 cents a year; $1.00 for a
year and a half, $1.25 for two years. Remit by any convenient method. Checks
upon small or distant banks must add 10 cents for collection fees.

BACK NUMBERS. — Volumes 1 to 10 inclusive consist of 6 numbers each,
volumes 11 to 13 consist of 5 numbers each and all later volumes have 4 numbers.
Price of single volumes 75 cents. When a full set is purchased the price is 50
cents a volume. Those who wish, may buy the later volumes at 75 cents each,
and when an amount has been paid equal to the price of a full set, the earlier
volumes to complete the set will be sent free. These back numbers form a per-
fect mine of information for the botanist, the gardener, the teacher of nature
study and the general reader. More than 5,000 articles and notes have already
been published.

WiLLARD N. Clute 6c Company, Publishers

209 WHITLEY AVE.. dOLIET. ILL.
Entered at mail matter of the second class at the post office, Joliet, IlL

Here, then, is a "different" magazine of

Outdoor Inspiration

and a little monthly visitor of outdoor
interest in New Hampshire — the
Picturesque;

Cbe $Muh Book

of nature ana OwtScor Of e

Redolent of field and sky. bearing
Uf message of the open air — of green
hclds, fern-filled woodlands, and silent
bills, stately trees and wayside
flowers, sketched in wrose, poetry and
tL'nstration.

A quarter brings it to you on three
months' trial; try it, you will become
mterested.

Get this monthly chart of the heart-
beats of nature. There is ozone in
every page, and it nicely fits the
pocket. It is finely printed and con-
ti'ns original drawings. Address,

Arthur E. Voge!

Puhlisher THE SKx-.TCH BOOK
Manchester, N. H,

The Fern Bulletin

For all Students and Lovers of Ferns.

This magazine was begun before
there was a single popular fern-book
in America and for eighteen years
has covered the whole field of fern-
study. It is a complete record of the
rise and progress of this v*'ork and
the back volumes contain descriptions
of a large number of the species and
forms discovered during this period.
Among other special features are
portraits of all the leading fern
students, monographs of various
genera, illustrations of rare species
and varieties and accoimts of re-
markable ferns from the tropics.

Subscriptions 75 cents a year.

First 6 volumes are out of print;
we offer a set of the next 12 for $7.50
postpaid.

WILLARD N. CLUTE & CO.,
JoUet, 111.

■\

■"7>>'^'".

.^MiiM^^.h^

>->.

"■A

The American Botanist

VOL. XVII JOLIET, ILL., MAY, 1911 No. 2

t/yi all fain hues from ivhite to mingled nose,

^^long the hedge the clasping SinSiveed floufens;
•^incl ivhen one chalice shuts a neuf one olows,

tJhene's blooming fon all minutes of all houns,
^ilong the hedge beside the tnodden lane,

nhene day by day u^e pass and pass again.

—Augusta Webster

THE SOAP WEED.

By Earl Lynd Johnston.

IT is the unusual that attracts our atention. The common
things of life, no matter however interesting they might
be, are likely to be overlooked every day. An ever-green
tree in a never-green environment, our western plains, would
call forth comment from a very ordinary person. It is an
unusually interesting plant that forms the subject of this
article.

As the early explorers passed through Colorado they
noticed a plant out of harmony with its surroundings. It
could be seen on the dry hills and rocky slopes, and, per-
chance, in the sandy river bottoms. It was green while its
environment was bleak and dry. Fremont, in the report of
his trip down the Platte, made mention of it. Early settlers
became acquainted with it and knew its name long before
they had even heard of the names of the other plants indigen-
ous to the same region.

It presents a striking appearance with its long, stiff, ever-
green leaves, pointed like daggers, growing in a dense bunch
from a thick root. The appearance of these leaves gave it

34 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

the name, "Spanish bayonet." However, locally I find this
name rather unknown. "Soap weed," the name given to it
by the Indians, is the name by which it is known here.

Yuccas are so familiar, being- cultivated in many eastern
flower gardens an'd parks, that the general characterstics will
not be of a great deal of common interest. Yet, for the sake
of the few who have never seen them I shall tell of yuccas as
I have begun to know them on the plains of Colorado.

They belong to the Liliaceae and number, according to
some authors, about twenty species. Our species is known as
Yucca glauca Nutt. Although some are tree like plants ours
is stemless with the leaves growing in dense bunches from a
long, tough, thick root. The leaves remain green through-
out the year and have a sort of varnish covering to prevent
the escape of moisture. They are two to three feet long, very
stiff and tipped with a spine which is suppose'd' to protect the
plant. They are quite narrow, scarcely an inch wide and
have coarse white filaments along the margins which look and
feel not unlike the sisal fiber used in the twine of that name.
The fiber of some of the species of the Southwest is used by
the Indians as cordage.

The white, bell-shaped flowers growing on a flower stalk,
two or three feet high, are truly a glorious spectacle. This
scape arises from the center of the bunch of leaves, and has
the flowers arranged on it in rows, drooping like tiny bells
with clapper-like stigmas ready to tinkle in the breeze. Their
creamy whiteness standing out against the unvaried vista of
the plains always compels one to stop and admire. The
flowers are fleshy, an'd so hard to dry that I have never suc-
ceeded in getting a good specimen for my hei^barium. It is
said that cattle grazing on the plains are fond of them, hence,
its stockade of pointed leaves is supposed to prevent this, but,
I seriously question this supposition. The leaves seldom ex-
tend more than three feet from the root and consild'erably less
than at a right angle to it. The racemes are so far

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 35

above them that cattle can easily get to the bloom. I have
been told by cattlemen that when cattle do get to them their
milk tastes soapy. What seems to me to be another fallacy
is in regarding these pointed leaves as being for the protec-
tion of the leaves themselves. Protection against what?
What will eat the hard dry leaves anyway? The only thing
I know that does eat them to any extent are grasshoppers and
a few other insects. Prairie dogs might, but when a prairie
dog can readily eat cacti what good would a single spine on the
end of a leaf do if they chose to eat it?

The fruit in our species is a hard 6-celled capsule. Some
southwestern species have a soft fruit which is eaten by the
Indians of that region. The root has the general character-
istics of xerophytic plants. It is large, woody, and porous,
capable of absorbing much water in the rainy season. It is
covered with a tough skin, preventing the escape, into the dry
parched ground, of this stored up moisture. It is in the roots
that the saponaceous properties are found.

I suppose the yucca and its method of pollination has been
written about more than any other single plant, and for goo^
reasons too. A plant that has to depend on a single species of
insect for fertilization is rather unusual. I believe each spe-
cies of yucca has its own species of the yucca moth, Pronuha,
to fertilize it.

The flowers of yucca have very short anthers that cannot
reach the stigmas of their respective flowers. This with the
fact that the pollen is rather vascid argues against self fertili-
zation. In addition those who have made a detailed study of
yucca pollination say the pollen can not be intro'duced into the
stigmatic tube without artificial aid. The yucca moth, in
order to preserve her own progeny, comes to the rescue and
saves this plant from passing into the ranks of the exterminated
by pollinating it. This intelligent little creature, during the
hours of nightfall, for she is noctural in her habits, gathers
up a load of pollen, all she can carry, and flies to another plant

36 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

where she lays her egg^s within the pistil by means of her
ovipositor. Here a wonder occurs. It is only when the
flowers are young, generally not over two days old, that the
pistils are susceptible of pollination. The moth seems to know
this and never oviposits in older flowers. As soon as she de-
posits her eggs she goes to the top of the pistil and pushes
her load of pollen as far into the tube as she can. In a few
days the egg hatches and the larvae feed on the young and
tender sedd's. Enough seeds, however, are left to perpetu-
ate the species.

The consideration of this plant and moth with their in-
terdependence forms an interesting study. To see the moth
at work one will have to do his observing after nightfall and
with an artificial light of some kind. When one has observed a
few things for himself then let him seek some good authority
who has made a life study of yucca and Pronuba. I would
refer those who wish to know more on the subject to the Third
Annual Report of the Missouri Botanical Garden where they
will find a long article by that profound insect authority, C.
V. Riley, to which I am indebted for much information.

Ft. Liipton, Colo.

BY THE RIVER'S BRIM.

By Frank Dobbin.

A WALK by the river side is always interesting as one is
sure to make some interesting finds. If the stream
be sluggish with plenty of mud on the bottom some of the
numerous Potamogetons will be found or the long streamers
of the eel grass ( Vallisneria spiralis) will point the direction
of the slow moving current. The submerged rocks and
stones may be dark with the long stems of some moss of the
genus Fontinalis — possibly F. dalecarlica or F. N ovae-An-
gliae, or if it be a favorable locality the curious seaweed-like
plant, the river weed {Podestemon ceratophyllum) may be

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 37

found closely clinging- to the stones where the current is
swift. Generally its thick matted branches are full of par-
ticles of sand and bits of sawdust and it needs a thorough
cleaning before going into the vasculum. At the first glance
this plant might be taken for a cryptogam but such is not the
case for a closer examination will show it to be a flowering
plant. In similar places may sometimes be found the alga
(Batrachospermum moniliforme) also clinging to the peb-
bles in the bed of the stream. When first removed from the
water it has a jelly-like appearance but this disappears upon
drying.

The sand and gravel bars running out from the bank are
always good hunting ground being usually well covered with
sedges — Cy perns, Eleocharis, Scirpus an'd' the like; While the
Scirpus-Wko^ rush {Juncus scirpoides) may often be found.
On such a bar I sometimes find the small bedstraw {Galium
triUdum) intermingled with dwarfish Bidens. Such places
are also the favorite habitats of the sand cherry (Prumus
piimila) which more resembles a dwarf willow than the plums
and cherries to Which it is allied.

If the month be August, looking up or down the stream
one may catch a gleam of brilliant color. A flash of purest
cardinal red which is not difficult to identify as the cardinal
flower {Lobelia cardinalis) — the most brilliant of our north-
ern blossoms. Where a brook enters the main stream is a
favorable place to search for that more humble relative of the
cardinal flower, the brook lobelia {Lobelia Kalmii).

On the bank and perhaps leaning out so that it is re-
flected in still water, will be the great St. John's-wort {Hy-
pericum ascyron) a plant well worthy of cultivation for its
great flowers of pure yellow. Many other St. John's-worts
may be found without difficulty as they are a numerous aridl
hardy race, liking well the neighborhood of lakes and
streams.

38 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

Just outside the willows and alders that border the
stream and yet out of reach of the mowing machine are sure
to be found several conspicuous and easily recognized grasses.
Among them being the wild rye (Elymus Virginicus) and
the great nodding rye {E. Canadensis) sometimes five feet in
height and having a spike ten or twelve inches in length.
The genus Bromiis and also Panicularia are usually well rep-
resented in such places.

The burnet {Sanguisorha Canadensis) with its unrose-
like spike of flowers though a member of the rose family is a
lover of the river bank and here also the searcher after our
native orchids may sometimes be rewarded by finding one or
the other of the purple fringed orchids {Habenaria grandi-
flora or H. psy codes). I was fortunate the past summer in
locating a station for the somewhat rare tubercled orchi'd
{Habenaria flava) in the bed of a stream in eastern Vermont.

Space and time fail me to tell of all the finds a botanical
student may make when strolling "by the river's brim."

Shiishan, N. Y.

DAISIES.

By Dr. W. W. Bailey.

VERY wrong conceptions popularly prevail in regard to
the daisy. In the class-room these sometimes assume
a tragic fonn, as when the pupil with youthful temerity,
seeks to name a given plant by the index of his Manual.
Then, perhaps, name and description are suddenly discovered
to be discrepant. The lesson, is, however, a useful one and
the victim is very unlikely, unless endowed with great dull-
ness or "cheek"' to become mired again in the same puddle.

The real English daisy, the "Day's-eye" of Chaucer, the
"wee crimson tipped flower" of Burns, is a modest little plant
but a few inches in height, stemless and with small heads of
white, pink or crimson florets. With us in America, it is

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 39

only seen in cultivation either in gardens or on lawns. It
makes a neat and pretty border plant.

In the United States, the plant usually known as daisy
is not this Bellis perennis, but the ox-eye or white weed,
Chrysanthemum leucanthemum of science. At the East it is
one of the widely spread and pernicious weeds. For all that
it is a "thing of beauty and a joy forever." The French mar-
guerite or Paris daisy in some respects is like it, but is shrub-
by, from four to ten feet high, more delicate in aspect and
hailing from the Azores. It is Chrysanthemum frutescens.

Then we have the daisy fleabanes of the genus Erigeron,
looking like asters but mainly blooming earlier and with more
numerous and delicate rays. The first of these to appear is
early summer or late spring is rc>bin's plantation, but the most
beautiful is the Philadelphia fleabane. This is common about
the White Mountain foothills and in similar locations
throug'hout the North.

Somehow or other, the name "oxeye" has been misap-
plie'd' to the cone flower (Riidbeckia hirta) a member of the
genus to which the parent of the too familiar "gol'd'en glow"
belongs. These are in no sense daisies, but apart from names,
or may be in despite of them, they are among our showiest
wildflowers. Cone flower is said to have migrated from the
West with hayseed and is steadily extending its range. It
has coarse haii"y stems and foliage and large orange-colored
heads with chocolate cone or disk. It is splendid in cultiva-
tion, ever increasing in size, while in meadows as one views it
from car windows it spreads a gorgeous and unsurpassed
carpet.

This plant will illustrate the use of the word weed. A
w^eed is a plant that grows out of place, where not desired or
needed or where it is a positive nuisance. It follows that
the same plant may be a weed or flower, in the familiar sense,
according to situation or environment. In the field the

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

"black-eyed Susans" are weeds to fight; in the garden they
are effective flowers to cherish.

The Httle Mayweeds, of the genus Anthemis or Maruta
may also be called daisies. They are very closely allied to the
oxeye and have a pretty sleep habit, when as twilight ap-
proaches, they turn down their white rays. They love to
hang about old yar^d's and garden paths and really make a
handsome bouquet for the indoor vase but their rank cha-
momile odor is rather against them. The field chamomile
is not so offensive and its lavender rays project straight out
from the disk.

Providence, R. I.

PROLIFERATION IN A PEACH BLOSSOM.

By a. E. Skirling.

A PECULIAR case of proliferation in a peach blossom
was brought about by an accident to the growing
shoot of a budded seedling. In August, I budded a seedling

ABNORMAL PEACH BLOSSOM

peach in my yard. The next spring, the usual method was
followed of cutting off the top of the seedling 'dbwn to the

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 41

•bud. The bud grew but was accidentally broken off when
about three inches long. The bud that had been inserted,
however, was a multiple bud, having a flower bud on either
side of the leaf bu!d that first grew. After the destruction of
this first shoot, the flower buds were stimulated to exert
themselves to see what they could do to repair the loss of the
leafy stem ; but they were up against a difficult proposition ;
for being merely flower buds, with floral organs already
present in embryo, they could not entirely change their nature.
The attempt, however, was interesting. One of them opened
anid developed sepals that grew abnormally, becoming almost
as large as ordinary peach leaves. The petals of the corolla
were shrunken add' lacked their normal bright color. The
pistil grew into a twisted, dwarfed shoot, while the stamens
were abortive. Moreover, the peduncle grew till it was many
times normal length.
Kansas City, Mo.

POLLEN GRAINS.

MYRIADS, countless teeming myriads, of pollen grains,
infinitesimally small in size, extremely delicate of
texture, color and shape are fonned and, for the most part,
lie hidden in the secret recesses of the simple and often de-
spised, or the more beautiful and attractive, blossoms with
which Nature paints our world with glory. To the naked
eye they pass unnoticed; with the microscope they will show
their loveliness and individual strangeness of form both of
which are so great that one stands charmed and well nigh
spellbound before them. Here are tiny structures most won-
derfully made, created to carry out the most important func-
tions namely the fertilization of their own plant species and
consequent propagation of their kind. They are formed
within the stamen anthers, mature and die unseen ; yet on
their brief but essential life's work we depend for much that

42 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

is exquisite, refreshing, useful and necessary in the plant
world.

It is when the grains are considered individually, those
known to be wind wafted and those borne by insect agency
that we begin to realize their wonder. It is very essential
that there should be some means by which a wind carried
grain should easily catch the wind and we find in numbers
and numbers of instances that such grains often possess many
sides and angles. In form they are triangular, square, polyhe-
dral, hexagonal, octagonal, cubical, filiform cylindrical, etc.
So, too, it is extremely light in weight, very thin coated, very
smooth surfaced and very dry and powdery. On the other
hand, insect borne grains are usually circular, oval, ellipsoid,
etc. in form, their coats are marvelously grooved, warted,
pitted, furrowed, ridged or covered with most exquisite spin^.
ous projections or excrescences. They are often extremely
mucilaginous, owing to wee drops of oil that are secreted, this
oil varying in color from cream to yellow and other richer
hues. Many grains are pearly white, shell pink, cream, very
pale green, lemon yellow, orange, rich red (as in some of the
mulleins), deep purple (in ai-bor vitae), almost black (some
tulips), blue (Scilla), brownish black (poppy) and of many
other varying tones, the commonest of all perhaps, being
deep yellow.

Some very pretty and interesting examples may be seen
in the following plants : In the hazel a plant in which the
stamens are borne in pendulous delicate catkins, each grain
is triangular with a thickened portion at each angle : in arbor
vitae, another wind fertilized plant, the shape of the grain is
almost exactly similar though the coloring is different the
latter being purple and the former yellow. In the white
stitchwort the "dairy maids" of our spring hedgerows the
grain is hexagonal, yellow and very rough coated. In mallow
it is circular, having its outer coat (extine) studded' over
with most exquisite delicate spinous projections and of a deep

THE AM-^RICAN BOTANIST 43

brownish yellow color. X'ery choice examples of spinous
surfaced grains can be seen in many of the compositae for
instance, oxeye daisy, purple erigeron, common daisy, the
large white "moon" of our gardens, the marigolds, dandelion,
etc., and in the French honeysuckle, Campanulas and countless
other plant species. In the sweet scented mimosa each grain
is more or less octagonal having its surface covered with fur-
rows and intricate striations. In the chickory we find poly-
hedral grains, in the beech, oblong and d'eeply grooved ones,
in the plantain they are quite circular, smooth surfaced and
pearly white. In the lesser celandine they are circular, yel-
low in color, having here and there on their extines small
knob-like projections. The garden lupine shows a pretty ex-
ample : in this plant each grain is brick-shaped, somewhat
rounded at both ends, rather rough surfaced of a fair size
and rich orange in color, and in the stinging nettle we find
them quite circular in form, very smooth, grayish white in
hue and very small. It is interesting to take in one's fingers
a small branch of nettle blossoms and hold it up against a
dark object: if the stamens are ripe, that is, are ready to de-
hisce and shed their pollen the grains may be seen forcibly
ejected every now and then just like puffs of smoke. When
this happens in the open air, of course the wind catches the dry
powdery grains as they are thrown off from the somewhat
pendulous sprays and carries them to some other flower on
the same or a neig'hboring plant. In the cycaid's, firs, etc., all
of them wind fertilized plants, the grains of pollen are made
specially buoyant by reason of their possessing two very small
bladderlike pouches or hollow vescicles which act like sails.

In all the flowering plants of field down, and hedgerow,
copse, woodland, river an'd swamp, can these lovely grains of
pollen dust be found — perfect little structures, each with two
cons surrounding a mass of coarse grandular protoplasm, the
life-giving element of all cells with its nucleus and grains of
starch, certain fatty matters and tiny drops of oil, all of which

44 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

material enables the grain to perform its functions of fertiliza-
tion, once it has escaped from the anther and alig-hte'd on the
pistil of some plant of the same species. Then it is that the
grain sends out a little tube which grows down the pistil till
the ovary is reached and the contents of the grain mingles
with one of the ovules in the ovary, thus bringing about fer-
tilization which in time will cause the ovule to become a ripe
seed. In some plants, as in crocus this is accomplished in a
few hours ; in some plants a few weeks elapse ; in the orchids,
several months pass; while in the firs and their allies two
years pass before development is complete. The work goes
on, we cannot see it, but we can see the stamens as they sway
versatile in the tiger lily, stand rect, column like, pearly pink
or creamy white in the mallow or in countless other positions
in all kinds of flowering plants and we can see the grains be-
neath the miscrosicope and there revel in their many beauties.
Perhaps of all the floral structures these wee bodies are some
of the most marvelous. Certain it is that for the important
issues of life for which they were created they are most deli-
cately, most chastely made. — K. E. Sty an in Selborne Maga-
zine.

THE SPRING FLOWERING WITCH HAZEL.

I WAS pleased to see in The American Botanist a refer-
ence to the American Spring-flowering Hamamelis and
am very glad to be able to supply you with a few more particu-
lars.

As you know, the only other Hamamelis native of this
continent is H. Virginiana which flowers in the fall and the
discovery of a spring-flowering species is of much interest to
botanists and those who cultivate flowering shrubs. This new
species was discovered by Mr. B. F. Bush, Missouri, a gentle-
man who has been instrumental in introducing many good
shrubs. Plants were first sent by him to the Arnold Arbore-

THE AMERICAN BOTANaST 45

turn in October, 1908. Mr. Bush found this witch hazel in
the mountains of North CaroHna.

At the date of writing (April 4) it is just in full bloom
at the Arboretum, quite small plants being- well covered, and
though not so showy as the Japanese or Chinese species yet it
is an exceedingly interesting and desirable addition to our early
spring flowering shrubs. The flowers have a deep red center
and the petals, about half an inch in length are rich yellow
suffused with red. The foliage closely resembles the Japanese
H. arhorea. In Massachusetts this new Hamamelis is per-
fectly hardy and will, I think, prove a useful addition to our
gardens.

Owing to the courtesy of Professor C. S. Sargent this
shrub has been growing in European gardens for the last two
years, from where, I understand, you first heard of it. — A. E.
Thatcher, Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Plain, Mass.

[In a later communication Mr. Thatcher writes that the
new witch hazel has been given the appropriate name of
Hamamelis vernale. Mr. Charles E. A. Hale of Savan-
nah, Georgia writes that he has found a witch hazel in full
flower in his locality late in January. This is possibly the
new species. A curious feature of the general region from
which the new shrub comes is found in the fact that it pro-
duces several species that fruit out of season as compared with
their congeners in the North. One of the grape ferns, Botry-
chiiim biternatum, fruits here in spring, though all its close
allies, farther toward the pole do not fruit until autumn and
do not, in fact, appear above the earth at all until late June
or even July. — Ed.]

Wanted. — Short notes of interest to the general botanist
are always in demand for this dep'^rtment. Our readers are
invited to make this the place of nublication for their shorter
botanical items. The magazine is issued as soon as possible
after the 15th of February, May, August and November.

The Water Lily a Monocot. — It has long been
known that a considerable number of plants reputed to be
members of the great group of dicotyledons, have many struc-
tures that seem to indicate their rather close relationship to
that other branch of the flowering plant division known as
the monocotyledons. In a former day these plants were
ofter regarded as some of the piers of that bridge which wa?
supposed to connect monocot and dicot and they have beei
much studied in consequence. Among such plants the water
lilies and some of the Berberidaceae are included and Dr. J,
H. Schaffner now comes forward with a re-arrangement of
plant families which locate the water lilies among the mono-
cots and pretty well toward the bottom of the list, at that,
since they are sandwiched in between the water plantains and
eel-grass families. It is likely, liowever, that most botanists
will be inclined to accept this transfer and some there be who
would add the mandrake {Podophylluni) to the same cate-
gory.

Drains Clogged by Root.s. — In some cities it is now
unlawful to plant the so-called North Carolina poplar along
the city streets because of its tendency to fill up drains and
sewers with its roots. Numerous complaints of this kind

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 47

have been made and most of them refer to this particular tree,
but the poplar has no monopoly of such habits and a recent
magazine gives an illustration of a mass of pear roots more
than sixty feet long and tweleve inches in diameter taken from
a tile drain w'hich they had completely clogged. The annual
layers on the single root that had caused all the mischief
showed it to be only five years old and it was less than an inch
in diameter where it entered the drain.

Hybrid Tragopogons. — Two species of the genus
Tragopogon are familiar to American botanists, one the well-
known oyster plant or salsify (Tragopogon porrifoUiis)
with purplish flowers, and the other, the equally familiar
goats-beard or John-go-to-bed-at-noon {T. pratensis) with
yellow flowers. The first, usually cultivated in gardens, has
occasionally run wild, the other, of no particular use, has
been neglected by the gardener but is nevertheless rather the
more wide spread of the two. When this vagabond of the fields
meets with its aristocratic cousin of the gardens, hybridiza-
tion sometimes occurs resulting in plants with smoky purple
flowers and other characters intermediate between the two
species. This hybrid is better known in Europe, where it is
reported from both Britain and the continent and according
to Focke was the first hybrid to be produced for scientific pur-j
poses, the cross having been accomplished by no less a person
than Linnaeus in 1759. Those interested in hybridizing may
find these two plants most excellent for experimental pur-
poses.

Orientation of Fibrous Roots. — According to Horti-
culture an ingenius Jap has discovered that the small roots
of turnips, beets, radishes, carrots and the like grow in two
straight lines on each side of the main root, and that further
these roots always grow in east and west directions, never
north and south. All that is necessary, then is to arrange

48 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

our gardens and plantings so that these roots will be able to
grow out into the soil between the rows and thus secure the
plant food where it is most accessible. Most gardening
works suggest that plants do best when planted in north an!d
south rows but this is reputed to be because the roots of the
plants are in this way shaded from the sun and not so easily
dried up. Can it be that the Jap has really hit upon the real
reason, or is this only another of those superstitions to which
those who delve in the soil are so often addicte'd. At any
rate, any of us with a garden should be able to either prove
or disprove the proposition this summer.

The Soap Nut. — In a recent number of the Scientific
American E. Moulie, Jacksonville, Florida, has an account
of a wonderful soap-bearing tree said to have originated from
seeds brought from China by missionaries twenty-seven years
ago. Mr. Moulie believes that the soap-nut in'dustry may be
made to pay in Florida and the warmer parts of the South
and offers seeds free to those who wish to experiment in the
matter. The botanical relationships of the soap-nut are not
indicated but in this connection it may be noted that soap-
trees are not unknown, even in this country. In fact, we
have two native species one of which Sapindus acuminata,
grows as far north as Arkansas. Many other soap trees be-
long to the genus Sapindus. Sapindus utilis has long been
cultivateld in Northern Africa for its soapy qualities, and the
Chinese have another species, S. mucorossi valued in the same
way. It is possible this latter species that has found favor in
Florida. Still another species ^. saponaria grows wild in the
American tropics.

Birds as Botanists. — If anyone whose winter rambles
lead him along wet wood borders will take note of clumps
of Panicmn clandestium. he will finid the upper sheaths split
to shreds while still uninjured at the junction with the dry
yellow blade above. A few winters ago the cause of this

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 49

was made known to the writer when watching a flock of
chickadees near Takoma Park, a suburb of Washington, D.
C. These animated balls of gray and black were having a
feast on the big fat grains of the cleistogamous spikelets con-
cealed in the sheaths. I have since found occasional clumps
of Panicmn Boscii also with shred'ded upper sheaths. Evi-
dently the chickadees knew of this character of P. clande-
stinum and profited by it before Linnaeus bestowed the name
"clandestinum" on the species because of it. — Agnes Chase in
Rhodora.

Rubber from the Milkweed. — Several familes of
plants, including the dogbanes (Apocynaceae) the spurges
(Enphorbiaceae) and the milkweeds (Asdepiadaceae) pretty
generally possess a milky juice called latex. In many in-
stances this latex contains rubber, and a large share of the
commercial product comes from tropical trees and vines be-
longing to these families. Even some of our temperate region
plants produces rubber but this is usually of such inferior
quality and occurs in such minute quantities that it is never
likely to appear in market. The fact that the rubber exists,
however, is of interest. Recently some investigations have
been carried on with the common milkweed (Asclepias syri-
aca) and a note in the Ohio Naturalist records that it is a rub-
ber producer though the rubber is not of a high grade. Be-
sides the rubber, the latex from this plant contains sugar,
mineral matter and resin. About 2 or 3 per cent of rubber is
yielded by the latex.

Meaning of Amaryllis. — A subscriber asks for the
meaning of the name Amaryllis which is sometimes applied to
a group of tropical American bulbous plants allied to the iris
and narcissus. The same group is also known as
ZepJiyranthes and Atainasco but usually amaryllis is
added as a common name showing that the plants be-

50 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

came well known under the generic name of Amaryllis
before the name-tinker got busy with them. Amaryllis
is a Latin word and its equivalent is found in the
Greek language, but there seems to be no meaning connected
with this word that would make it applicable to these plants. A
safer guess is that the plants were named for the Spanish word
Amarilla meaning yellow. These plants abound in Mexico
and other countries in which Spanish is spoken and it is quite
likely that species with yellow flowers sent to Linnaeus as
amirilla lilies induced him to give the name of Amaryllis to
the genus. The fact that several species have yellow or yellow-
ish flowers gives color to the suggestion. If any reader can
throw additional light upon this subject we shall be glad to
hear from him.

Effects of Moisture on Wood. — The effect of water in
softening organic tissue, as in wetting a piece of paper or a
sponge, is well known, and so is the stiffening effect of drying.
The same law applies to wood: By different methods of seas-
oning two pieces of the same stick may be given very different
degrees of strength. Wood in its green state contains moist-
ure in the pores of the cells, like honey in a comb, and also in
the substance of the cell walls. As seasoning begins the moist-
ure in the pores is first evaporated. This lessens the weight of
the wood but does not affect its strength. It is not until the
moisture in the substance of the cell walls is drawn upon that
the strength of the wood begins to increase. Scientifically this
point is known as the "fiber-saturation point." From this con-
dition to that of absolute dryness the gain in the strength of
wood is somewhat remarkable. In the case of spruce the
strength is multiplied four times ; indeed, spruce, in small sizes,
thoroughly dried in an oven is as strong, weight for weight as
steel. Even after the reabsorption of moisture when the wood
is again exposed to the air the strength of the sticks is still from
50 to 150 per cent greater than when it was green. When, in

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 51

drying, the fibre-saturation point is passed, the strength of
wood increases as drying progresses, in accordance with a
definite law and this law can be used to calculate from the
strength of a stick at one degree of moisture what its strength
will be at any other degree. — Forest Leaves.

A Violet Lacking Petioles.; — Last May I found a
group of scattered clusters of unusual violets, growing near
the downy violet (Viola pubescens), which they closely re-
semble, the leaves, only, differing. To me, a violet leaf with-
out a petiole is unique. The downy violet sports a well de-
veloped petiole and the freak lacks it. The blade of the freak
leaf is narrower than that of the downy. Apparently the pe-
tiole has vanished and the stipules are leaving. Traces of the
latter are found at the base of the blade, where they are mostly
grown fast. The color is paler, the texture thinner, the margin
more finely cut and, sometimes, the tip of the deserting stipule
remains. The midrib has a kink near its base and the leaves
either turn up or down on the stem. One feels like calling it a
degenerating downy violet. — N. McMwray. [All such strange
freaks are worth recording and cultivating. Often sowing the
seeds from such plants will bring more of the same form. We
trust that our correspondent will keep this plant under notice
and find time to experiment with it. — Ed.]

White Partridge Berries. — There is one thing that
may be presaged of all species of plants bearing red fruits : if
we search long enough, we are reasonably certain of finding
white anid yellow forms. The yellow fonns are due to a dimin-
ution of the anthocyan that gives the red color; in fact, even
black fruits are often caused by an over load of this substance.
It will thus be seen that there is an easy transition from black
fruits to red ones as in the choke-berry (Pyrits) or from red
fruits to yellow ones as frequently occur in the holly and moun-^
tain ash. White berried forms are albinos such as may also be

53 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

found in the animal kingdom and are due to a lack of pigment.
They may thus be expected to occur in any part of the plant
having colors other than green. White fonns of the partridge
berry {Mitchella re pens) have been frequently reported, pos-
sibly because they are so widely distributed. The fonn has been
known for thirty years or more but in Rhodora for February
C. H. Bissell gives the name of leucocarpa to it and describes
it as a "new form." Bissell's specimens are from Connecticut
but others are known from Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
New York and Pennsylvania. We would be glad to hear of
other stations.

Freezing Point of Oranges. — It is generally known
that pure water will freeze at a higher temperature than water
with various substances in it, ahd plant juices have been found
to be no exception to this rule. Some experiments carried on
at Rollins College with oranges and grape fruit showed that
the juice of the ordinary orange needs be cooled down to
about 22 degrees before it will freeze while the freezing point
for both the grape fruit and tangerine is below 23 degrees.
In these experiments the juice was extracted from the fruits
anid' strained before freezing. It is well to remember, how-
ever, that it is not always the freezing that kills plants, for
the protoplasm of many plants can endure temperatures
many degrees below zero unharmed. On the other hand
some plants cannot stand a temperature several degrees
above freezing. It all depends upon the constitution of the
particular species.

The Southern Wahoo. — Our southern variety of
strawberry bush {Euonymus Americamts) known by us as
Wahoo, seems to be of much more slender growth than the
northern burning bush. Its habit of growing on stream banks
makes it reach up often 4 to 6 feet high and so slim as to look
vine-like, its green color adding to the similarity. Not only are

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 53

its "four-sided branchlets" deep green, but the color often ex-
tends almost to the ground. Its pods are larger than the
smooth ones of the burning bush, are decidedly rough and
well colordd — crimson — while its thread-like peduncles and
the waxy covering of the seeds are bright scarlet. The pods
open from three quarters to an inch in width and the seeds are
dropping now, in November, most of the lower pods being
empty. It is a very pretty bush, in leaf, flower, pod, seed and
stem, and is easily cultivatdd'. — F. G. Kenesson, Renilig,
Texas.

Waste in Lumbering. — According to a recent publica-
tion of the United States Forest Service we are still wasting
our forest products though well aware that the supply will
soon run short. If all the wood wasted in the manufacture
of yellow pine lumber, in 1907 had been steam distilled for
wood turpentine it would have yielded more than the total
production of gum turpentine for that year. If all
the waste spruce, hemlock, poplar and cotton-wood in
that year had been used for paper making it would
have furnished all the paper used in the same time. The wood
that went to waste in manufacturing chestnut lumber, if used
to make tanning extract would have produced twice as much
as was produced by the chestnut cordwood used for that pur-
pose. The waste in the manufacture of beech, birch and
maple in 1907 was nearly equal to the quantity of these woods
used for Id'istillation while the wasted oak for the same time
was twice as much as all the hardwoods used for distillation.
Evidently the lumberman needs educating or else investigat-
ing.

Relatives of the Sumach. — In most parts of our
country the sumach family {Anacardiaceae) is not of much
economic value. A few species are planted in extensive
grounds for the tropical appearance given by their long pin-
nate leaves, but others such as the poison ivy and poison su-

54 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

mach, though equally decorative have to be ruled out because
of their hannful qualities. A large number of the sumach's
allies in other parts of the world are more or less under sus-
picion but others are among our most decorative species and
the fruits of several are edible. The pepper tree (Schinus
mollis) so largely planted in California is a member of this
family and the famous tropical fruit the mango {Mangifer
Indica) is another. The cashew nut {Anacardium occidentale)
also belongs to the sumach family. In flower and fruit, all
these species resemble our common sumach in a general way,
having clusters of fruit each of which contains a single seed,
but here the resemblance ceases for the tropical fruits are
larger than peaches.

Forests and Water-flow. — The influence of forest
cover on water-flow is of a three fold nature : (1) the mechani-
cal obstruction which the foliage offers reduces the amount of
water which reaches the soil and lengthens the time during
which it can do so; the foliage together with the loose litter of
the forest floor also reduces the compacting effect of the rain-
drops and the drying effect of sun arid wind and keeps the soil
granular, so that the water can easily percolate; (2) then the
mechanical obstruction which the litter, underbrush and trunks,
and possibly here and there moss, offers to the rapid surface
drainage of waters, lengthens the time during which this per-
colation may take place; and (3) the network of d'eeply pene-
trating roots, live and decayed, offer additional channels for a
change of surface drainage into sub-drainage. In addition, ow-
ing to the influence on temperature and moisture conditions of
the air, together with reduced evaporation, more water be-
comes available to the soil, and certainly the fact that the water
by ready percolation, is wthdrawn from the dissipative effects
of sun and wind must tend in this direction. We should con-
sider the protection of our watersheds as much a national prob-
lem as the improvement of our water ways, and even more so.
— Dr. B. E. Fernow.

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST ' 55

The Radial Type in Plants. — One interestine: differ-
ence between the higher animals and plants that was long ago
pointed out is that the animals have a fore-and-aft polarity
while the plants are up an'd down structures. Still another
feature of plants dwelt upon by L. H. Bailey in his "Survival
of the Unlike" is the circular form that all vegetation tends to
take while animals are nearly all bilateral or two-sided. The
tendency to spread out in all directions is very strong in plants.
Tree trunks are round and branches are given off on all sides ;
the leaves, parts of the flower and even the seeds in the fruit are
for the most part arranged in circular fonn while in the high-
est type of plants, the asters and other composites, the flowers
themselves are arranged in this fashion. So characteristic is
the rotate form that any deviation from it is at once marked
as a specialization and we commonly hold the flowers of
orchids and labiates more highly specialized than those with
parts regularly arranged.

Crop and Weed. — It has come to be recognized th. t
there are natural associations of plants and natural rotations
of vegetation certainly determined by other than pla.it j'ood
factors. Thus in the Eastern United States, whea*: is foil ) /ed
by ragweed naturally while, across the fence, cockelbur and
wild sunflowers come in after the corn, the difference 'n ege-
tation being as sharply marked after the removal of the crops
as when they still occupied the land. Analyses of th.e ragweed,
for instance, although it is a shallow^er rooted crop than wheat,
show that it takes from the soil as much of the mineral nu-
trients as does the preceding wheat crop. The investigation of
Lawes and Gilbert on fairy rings can not be satisfactorily ex-
plained by the comparison of the mineral constituents of the
soil within and without the rings. Work at Woodbiirn on rhe
effect of grass on apple trees finds no other phusible explana-
tion than that the growing grass produces in the soil organic
substances detrimental to young apple trees. — Science.

SCHOOL BOTANY

Accessory Buds. — There are few phases of the plant
about which less seems to be known than the accessory or
supernumerary buds. These usually occur on either side of
the axillary or lateral buds or extend along the intermode for
some distance above them. The axillary bud is regarded as
the one nearest the center of the leaf scar, and this is un-
questionably correct for those cases in which the axillaiy and
accessory buds are arranged side by side, but when the buds
are superposed, that is, when several buds occur, one above
the other, the lowest bud, which in this case would be de-
fined as the axillary bud, is often the smallest and most in-
significant of the lot, and since it rarely grows it may well be
questioned whether this is a true axillary bud ; whether, in
fact, accessory buds may not occur on all four sides of the
axillary buds and this be one of them. Nobody doubts the oc-
currence of such buds on three sides of the lateral bads. A
further interesting feature of the accessory buds is the kind
of structure to which they give rise. In such plants r s bear
the accessory buds on both sides of the lateral bud they 'n-
variably give rise to flowers, as one may easily discover by
examining the peach or the golden bell (Forsyfliia). So far
as the writer is aware, there are no flowering plants that pro-
duce three twigs above a single leaf scar as woulo be ihe
case if such accessory buds formed leafy twigs as the lateral
buds do. But in the plants with superpose'd buds the case is
quite different. Here it is apparent that these buds seldom
if ever produce flowers. Not only this but more than one of
these buds may grow. One has only to search vigorous
young twigs of the walnut, butternut or Ptcrocarya to find

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 57

two or more buds showing a tendency to grow and in some
cases the bud's produce twigs two or three inches long the
first year. Clearly such buds are not to be classed with the
buds that occur alongside of the lateral buds, and our botani-
cal texts need a little revision at this point. There does not
seem to be a very definite idea as to just how much the pro-
duction of a'dventitious buds enters into this problem of extra
buds at the nodes. If one searches the plants of the world
he will be surprised to find buds appearing almost anywhere.
Many of these, in fact all that appear at the nodes, are re-
garded as accessory biids, but who shall say that this view is
correct.

Fall of the Leaf. — It is pretty well known that leaver
'do not fall because of the frost though the approach of a cold
season may he responsible for their being cast off by the
parent plants. As a matter of fact, many plants never cast
their leaves. Mosses, ferns, and the great majority of
monocotyledons such as palms and lilies, do not throw off
their leaves. When these structures have served their pur-
pose, they wither and droop but remain attached to the plant
until decay or the play of the elements have detached them.
Most flowering plants however, long before autumn, begin to
make preparation for separating the leaves from the twigs.
This is accomplishd by a "cleavage plane" so-called, which
consists of a layer of brittle cells that grows across the petiole
and at the proper time causes it to fall. Before this layer of
cells is formed the plant forms a layer of cork cells just be-
low the place where it is to form. This often begins as early
as June and is manifestly of service in keeping the moisture
within the plant when the leaves have fallen. There are two
or three layers of cells in the tissue that cuts the leaf off and
this begins its growth at the epidemis and gradually spreads
across the petiole. Last of all the ends of the vessels carry-
ing water to the leaf are plugged with cork, and' the plant is
ready to enter the leafless condition.

EDITORIAL

^ O G ^

When this issue of The American Botanist went to press
we had no idea that we would have the opportunity to re-edit
it and add a postcript, as it were ; but as it turndd' out after the
magazine had been printed and sent to the bindery a fire broke
out which completely destroyed the issue and as the metal from
which it was printed had already been melted up, the entire
magazine had to be reset at the cost of considerable delay.
Since our printing is done by another company, this magazine
loses nothing but time in consequence of the fire, but as
Franklin used to observe "Time is the stufif life is made of" and
we apologize to our readers for subtracting from their lives
even so small a part is represented by the failure of this maga-
zine to appear on time. At this writing most of the August
number is reddy and barring accidents, will appear as usual
while this present number should be out the first week in July.
The building in which the printing firm is located has a rather
unenviable record for fires. It has required the attention of
the fire department eight times in half as many years. Earlier
in the present year another fire in this building delayed the ap-
pearance of The Fern Bulletin and we begin to feel like a'dding
to our date line the old familiar legend "Providence and the
weather permitting." However, in order to show that there
is no ill feeling because of the delay, all our subscribers whose
subscriptions have expired might renew at once!

* * *

Last month there was passed by the New York State
Legislature a bill to incorporate "The Carnagie Corporation of
New York" which is authorized to "receive and maintain a
fund and apply the income to promote the advancement and
diffusion of knowledge among the people of the United States

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 59

by aiding technical schools, institutions of higher learning,
libraries, scientific research, hero funds, useful publications
and by such other agencies an'd' means as shall from time to
time be found appropriate." Just here is where we are in-
clined to put up a few lightning rods — or should we now say
antennae — for ourselves. If men of means have at last de-
cided to come to the aid of struggling agencies for good in
the community, we feel sure that among the first to receive
such assistance must be those publications that are endeavor-
ing to foster an interest in botany, nature study and the other
outdoor pursuits that lie at the very foundation of the material
success of this country. The proposition to incorporate this
new Carnagie idea however, does not come as very much of
a surprise. For some years signs of a growing interest in
the spread of useful knowledge has been manifested by
wealthy men. As instances may be cited the bequest of about
thirty thousand dollars for the upkeep of the Lloyd Library
of Cincinnati maintained for the advancement of botanical
science, and the founding of a publishing house in Chicago
with a million dollar endowment to aid in issuing useful books
which otherwise could not be issued because the demand for
such matter is still too small to justify its being printed for
profit. The general public is not yet alive to the delights and
advantages of scientific studies. On this point, Dr. Richard-
son in an address delivered at the Minneapolis meeting of the
American Chemical Society exprssed himself thus : "Con-
sidered by itself, science and the scientific method are the most
satisfactory and satisfying things in the possession of the
human mind. The unfortunate thing — it can not be classed
as a criticism — about science is that it has left the multitude
untouched. With the results of science and the scientific
method on every hand forming so large a part of our splendid
materialistic civilization, nevertheless the great, the over-
whelming majority of people are ignorant of the methods,

60 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

the aims and the results of scientific inquiry in daily use and
of daily necessity ; of even greater import, the scientific method
of thought is not a part of their mental equipment." One of
the reasons why the general public has not a more abiding in-
terest in real science is doubtless due to the fact that news-
paper writers have so long dealt in a fanciful brand of
pseudo-science that the facts seem sober and uninteresting by,
comparison. To overcome this idea true science needs to
be set forth in its best garb, but this cannot be done at present
for lack of sufficient support from the public. Should the
Carnagie Corporation decide to aid this magazine in popular-
izing botanical science our readers may expect something
commensurate with the treatment the subject deserves.
Meanwhile we shall "go it alone" to the best of our ability.
But if we notice the Carnagie Corporation looking this way
we shall certainly wig-wag the sign of distress.

BOOKS AND WRITERS.

The Country Gentlemen of Albany, N. Y. which for more
than four score years has been conducted by the members of
a single family, father, son and grandson, has passed into the
control of the Curtis Publishing Company of Philadelphia.

A new publication known as Pomona College Journal
of Economic Botany, and devoted to sub-tropical horticulture
has made its appearance. Its editor is Prof. C. F. Baker
whose experience as an official of a Brazilian botanical garden,
supplemented by much plant collecting in tropical regions,
renders peculiarly fitted for the position. The magazine
is well illustrated and is issued quarterly at $1.00 a year.
The great interest that is now attached to tropical agriculture
and horticulture ensures that the new journal will have a
wide circulation.

THE AMERIICAN BOTANIST 61

Prof. R. S. Cocks of the Louisiana State Museum has
issued as Bulletin No. 1, of the Natural History Survey, a
list of the "Leguminosae of Louisiana." It is more than a
mere list, however covering- as it does about 25 pages and
nearly forty plates. It has been the author's aim either to
refer each species to a good published illustration or to illus-
trate it in the list. The distribution and habitat of each spe-
cies is given with the common names and necessary
synonymy, the nomenclature being according to the Vienna
rules. Nearly one hundred and fifty species are given, several
of them new to science. It is the intention of Prof. Cocks to
follow this Bulletin with others devoted to other plant
families, which will form a work badly needed in the region,
since current manuals have dealt very superficially with the
plants which grow there.

Among recently issued books of interest to botanists we
note "Nature Sketches in Temperate America" by Dr. J. L.
Hancock from McClurg & Co., "The Landscape Gardening
Book" by Grace Tabor and "Home Vegetable Gardening" by
F. F. Rockwell from the John C. Winston Co., Philadelphia.

Within the past few years discoveries of the greatest
importance as regards the evolution of the flowering plants
have been made in the realms of fossil botany. Only a short
time ago nothing seemed more certain than that the coal
measures were formed largely of gigantic ferns and allied
plants, now, it is reported, true fossil ferns are somewhat
rare, the species once regarded as ferns having quite unex-
pectedly turned out to be primitive flowering and seed bearing
plants. The discovery of this great group of pteridosperms
or cyadofilices as they are variously called has opened up
an entirely new vista into former geological ages, and renders
very timely Dr. Marie C. Stopes book on "Ancient Plants,"
which is issued by the D. Van Nostrand Co., of New York.

62 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

"Ancient Plants" is a very clearly written account of what is
known about these plants at present beginning with the var-
ious kinds of fossil plants known and the species that occur
in coal after which the minute structure of both living and
fossil plants is taken up and carefully compared. This fills
the first half of the book. The following pages contain the
past histories of plant families. These comprise not only the
histories of families which still inhabit the earth, but of all
those that are now found only in the fossil state, such as
Bennettitales, Sphenophyllales and the like. The book is well
illustrated, the photo-micrographs of fossil parts being es-
pecially good. Though the plants may have lived millions of
years ago the cells are plainly to be seen. It will be news,
to many that these plants of the far distant past were often
more complex than living ones, though with flowers and
fruits that seem fantastic in comparison with our own. The
price of the book is $2.00 net.

"Domesticated Animals and Plants" by Dr. Eugene
Davenport of the University of Illinois, is on the same gen-
eral lines as the author's previous volume on "Principles of
Breeding" but is more elementary in character and designed
for the secondary school instead of the college. Essentially
the same ground is traversed but fewer statistics are involved
with the resuh that we have a volume suited to the intelli-
gence of those beginning the study of plant and animal
breeding. The early pages are devoted to a discussion of
the origin of domestic races and the need for improvement
and these are followed by numerous chapters dealing with
natural selection, variability, the transmission of characters,
heredity, adaptation, and other subjects with which the plant
breeder must be conversant. The closing chapters attempt
to trace the origin of our domestic species of animals and
plants. At the end of each chapter there are a list of practi-

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 63

cal exercises which must prove of great value in directing the
efforts of the student. Though intended primarily as a text
book for schools, the volume will be found to be exceedingly
helpful to any who wish to become informed regarding
modern methods along the lines indicated. The book is
published by Ginn & Co., at $1.25.

Prof. Fred L. Charles, editor of the Nature Study Re-
view and well and favorably known to lovers of outdoors
recently committed suicide at the University of Illinois where
he was teaching. As no cause for the rash act is known it
is supposed to be due to a sudden fit of insanity due to over-
work.

Two small worms, inhabiting the waters off the coast of
Brittany and neither of them large enough to be seen well
without a lens have provided Prof. Frederick Keeble with
the materials for an entire book. These worms are known
as Convoluta roscoffcnsis and C. paradoxa the former being
dark green and the other yellow-brown. One of the first
things that make these worms of interest is the fact that their
living is absolutely synchronized with time and tide which,
we are told, "wait for no man" and for no worm either for
that matter. When the sun is up and the tide out, these
worms come to the surface of the sand in countless millions
seeming to enjoy the light, but at the first impact of the
waters of the incoming tide they immediately disappear be-
neath the sand only to appear again when the tide has re-
ceded. Prof. Keeble's studies after many years have shown
him that the reason for the peculiar behavior of these worms
is to be found in the fact that they possess chlorophyll and
that they are, in truth, plant-animals, in which there is a
true symbiosis between the worms and certain alga cells that
inhabit their bodies. During the early part of their exist-
ence the worms feed upon the usual microflora of the sea-

64 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST

beach, later they cease to ingest food and live on the pro-
ducts of photosynthesis carried on by the alga cells. The
book, which is very appropriately called "Plant- Animals ; a
Study in Symbiosis" is an interesting and well written ac-
count of their habits and of the experiments undertaken by,
the author to prove, step by step the theories set up in regard
to them. The book is from the press of Cambridge University,
England but may be obtained of the American agents, G. P.
Putnam's Sons, New York. The price is 40 cents net.

Here and there, in response to the demand for a general
science course in the high school, outlines and laboratory
manuals in the subject are beginning to appear. General
science, it may be explained, is the name given a mixture of
nearly all the sciences and designed to place the pupil in in-
telligent contact with his environment. One of the more de-
sirable outlines for such a course has been issued by Prof.
Percy E. Rowell, of the Gardenia Agricultural high school.
This lists nearly one hundred and fifty topics for investigation
which are taken from the more familiar phases of chemistry,
physics, geology and biology. In most of these there is first
a succinct statement of the facts followed by a considerable list
of references for further reading. In our opinion it is likely
to prove valuable in a course where information is the object
'desired. No directions for experiments are included so that
the teacher who would teach by the experimental method will
have to devise for herself.

ADD THESE TO YOUR LIST

Our Fems in Their Haunts

By Willard N. Clute.

A complete and authoritative account of the ferns of Eastern
America giving the life history, habits, common names, folk lore and
exact scientific descriptions of every species. Special attention has
been given to the rare and little known species and to the points for
identifying those that are much alike, 225 illustrations of rootstocks,
fronds, pinnae, sori, indusia, etc., make everything plain to the begin-
ner. An illustrated key enables even the novice to name his speci-
mens. There is no other fern book so useful or so comprehensive.
Octavo, 333 pages, bound in cloth. Price, $2.15 postpaid.

The Fern AlHes of North America

By Willard N. Clute.

A companion volume to "Our Ferns in their Haunts," and treat-
ing of all the allied fernworts of the United States and Canada in the
same comprehensive and detailed manner. The only volume in the
English language devoted entirely to the scouring rushes, club-
mosses, selaginellas, pepperworts, water-ferns, quillworts and the like.
Seven keys to the groups make identification easy. Every species
carefully illustrated from- authentic specimens. Octavo, 250 pages,
150 illustrations and 8 colored plates, bound in cloth. Price, $2.15
postpaid.

Laboratory Botany for the High School

By Willard N. Clute.

The Fern Collectors* Guide

By Willard N. Clute.

The American Botanist or The Fern Bulletin will be sent 1 year
with an order from the above list for 50 cents additional.

Address all orders to

Willard N. Clute and Company
JoHet, Illinois.

School Science and Mathematics

The Journal for all Progressive Science and Mathematics Teachers

It gives new ideas and methods of scientific and mathematical instructions —
practical articles on the teaching of science and mathematics. Suggestive, illus*
trated descriptions of apparatus, experiments, laboratory equipment and plans.
Short, newsy, helpful notes on the progress in science and mathematics. Speak
to your teacher, friends about it. Get them to subscribe. Supscriptions received
at any time. Yearly subscriptions, $2.00.

SCHOOL SCIENCE and MATHEMATICS

2059 East Seventy-second Place Chicago, Illinois

■ ■■■■ — .I ■ I '^^— ■.. ■ . ■ — _ — ■ — '■■■ — ■■ — -.■.--.- . ■ I ■■ — ■ — . — -■■■,.. ..11 .. ..I I. ...

THE NATURE-STUDY REVIEW

(Journal of the American Nature-Study Society) will continue durins 1911 its

SPECIAL TEACHING NUMBERS of timely interest and permanent value

January — City Nature-Study May — Manual of Nature-Study Literature

February — Tree Studies September — Autumn Flowers and Weeds

March — Calendar Studies October — Children's Pets

April — Aquatic Studies November — Farm Studies

December — Health Number
We can still furnish copies (at ISc) of the most popular issues of 1910, as
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VOLUME 17. NUMBER 3 WHOLE NUMBER 90

AUGUST, 1911

15he

AMERICAN
BOTANIST

devoted to Economic and Ecological Botany

CONTENTS

THE FLORA OF THE CHICAGO PLAIN - 65

BY WILLARD N. CLUTE

A SUNNY CROP 70

BY MISS NELL McMURRAY

THREE BIG PERENNIAL ROOTS ... 72

BY ELMER STEARNS

A NEW SPECIES OF PHLOX ... 74

BY WILLARD N. CLUTE AND JAMES H. FERRIS

NOTE AND COMMENT 77

SCHOOL BOTANY 89

EDITORIAL 92

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The American Botanist

VOL. XVII

JOLIET, ILL., AUGUST. 1911

No. 3

THE FLORA OF THE CHICAGO PLAIN.

By Willard N. Clute.

' I ' HE City of Chicago is located on a nearly flat stretch of
•*■ country, at the head of Lake Michigan, known as the
Chicago plain. This plain is from ten to to fifteen miles in width
and once formed part of the floor of a great glacial lake a rem-
nant of which still exists as Lake Michigan. Westward and
southward the plain is bounded by a broad belt of intermingled
sand gravel and clay known as the Valparaiso moraine which
formed the shore of the ancient lake at this point, and was, in
fact, largely the cause of it, since it held back the waters of the
nielting ice sheet until they found a way out by way of the
"sag" and the Desplaines valley into the Mississippi.

At present the plain averages about twenty feet above the
surface of Lake Michigan, but it still bears evidences of its re-
cent and watery origin in extensive stretches of marsh-land
and general lack of drainage. In the parts that have not been
artificially drained the few inhabitants regard the rubber boot
season as a natural condition to be accepted with the same for-
titude that summer drouth and untimely frosts are endured.
During the spring rains, extensive "wet weather lakes" may be
formed over large tracts that are dry enough in summer to
produce a fair crop of hay or in some instances garden crops,
but which at this season are impassible to one ordinarily shod.
The soil is almost exclusively a deep and impervious clay,
though darkened by the decaying vegetation that for many
centuries has grown upon it. Here and there one finds sandy
ridges or mounds which mark the location of ancient lake
beaches, or of shallows in the lake itself. These are covered

66 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST.

with a flora that differs in some respects from that of the rest
of the area, but which only sei-ves to emphasize the uniformity
of the flora in general. Trees appear never to have flourished
here. A few willows and cottonwoods may be found in
swampy spots, and oaks have gained a root hold on the sandy
ridges, but for the most part, it is a treeless and prairie-like
region.

There are still many areas of considerable size in this re-
gion that have never been turned by the plow and still support a
virgin flora unspoiled by the operations of the farmer, save for
an occasional mowing. This condition, however, is not likely
to last much longer for the city is fast encroaching upon it.
The soil is being drained, market gardens begin to appear
where but recently the sedges and wild grasses held sway, and
an occasional dwelling rising out of the mud on stout posts
presages the solid blocks of buildings that are to be.

Having had occasion to traverse several square miles of
the most typical part of this plain daily during the past spring,
it has seemed to me that a few observations upon the flora are
worth while before the spread of the city forever makes such
notes impossible. Notwithstanding its nearness to a big city
on one hand and to a well forested region on the other, it has
many characteristics of its own that are likely to strike the
visitor as uncommon.

As may be inferred from the nature of the soil, the region,
is slow to warm up in spring and such species as are common
to this and adjacent regions, strongly emphasize the differ-
ence in temperature by blooming here from one to two weeks
later than elsewhere. That this difference cannot be attri-
buted to locality is shown by the fact that when the first
flowers open on the plain, the same species not two miles away,
but growing on the moraine, are in full bloom. There is a
noticeable absence of the flowers of early spring. One looks in
vain for such plants as hepatica, bloodroot, adder's tongue.
Solomon's seal, trillium, spring cress, rue anemone, and Canada

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 67

ginger. Even typical marsh plants like the skunk's cabbage
and marsh marigold are absent. All these, and many more
are abundant on the moraines but in all the years that they
have grown there they do not seem ever to have ventured out
upon the plain. Most of these have gone out of flower on the
moraine before flowers of any kind appear on the plain. In-
deed the region has no early spring flora. While buds are
opening and green shoots springing in abundance elsewhere,
the plain lies flowerless and passive, reminding one of the en-
virons of New Orleans under similar circumstances. The first
flov/er to appear in spring is the cosmopolitan dandelion fol-
lowed soon by the mouse-ear plantain and Carex Pennsylvan-
ica. For a long time these are the only blossoms to be found, but
as they fade, the wild strawberry and one of the blue violets
cover the ground with their blended colors.

The alliance of the flora is plainly with that of the prairie.
This is more noticeable in autumn when sunflowers, blazing
stars, compass plants, golden-rods, rudbeckias, asters, and other
characteristicafly prairie plants monopolize the soil, but the
likeness is noticeable even in spring in the occurrence of such
plants as the shooting star, downy phlox, orange puccoon,
Indian plantain, tall phlox and prairie dock. Another feature
characteristic of the prairie is the abundance of such flowers as
occur at all. When any species blooms, it is likely to become
the most conspicuous thing in the landscape. For a time it
has the center of the stage and none can fail to note it. The
squaw weed (Senecio) that elsewhere may appear in scattered
bunches, here covers square miles with a solid spread of yellow
that no eastern field of butter-cups can surpass. In another
field a yellow of lighter hue interspersed with flecks of
orange and scarlet show where the painted cup flour-
ishes. Soon these disappear and are succeeded by a wide-
spread rosy tint which heralds the blooming season of the
tall phlox. In such a region as this violets of several species
flourish. The lance-leaved violet forms compact beds, covering

68 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST.

hundreds of square feet growing so thickly that fifty plants
may be lifted by one thrust of the spade. One of the blue vio-
lets, with peculiarly attractive wine-colored flowers gives its
color to the whole region for a week or more.

After one has listed all the plants to be found, he is likely
to be astonished at the small number. During the first six
months of the year, less than fifty different species have
bloomed if grasses and sedges are omitted. There is a noirce-
able lack of those species which store up food in underground
parts. This in a measure explains why there are no early
flowers on the plain, but the question why such species should
be absent is quite another matter. Apparently soil, shade and
the all pervading moisture are jointly responsible for their ab-
sence. The presence of some others is almost equally difficult
to explain. The star grass, for instance, which elsewhere is
an inhabitant of dryish woods, grows here in the wet grounds,
and the purple oxalis keeps it company. Although the region
is crossed by several railways the absence of exotic weeds can-
not fail to be remarked. With the exception of the dandelion,
there are no plants in the list that have come to us from the
Old World, though many species of these may be plentiful
enough along the railway embankments.

In mid summer, the vegetation of the plain, being for the
most part shallow rooted, is frequently injured by drouth,
while in winter and spring the other extreme is met. This
wide variation in the amount of moisture has doubtless played
a part in the development of the plant covering of the region,
and a closer study of the plants will doubtless discover some
with differences of sufficient importance to warrant their being-
described as new forms. Some of these already noted are now
being kept under observation and further notes upon them may
be presented at another time.

The following list of the species found during the first
six months of 1911, is arranged in the order in which the spe-
cies were found in bloom. It will be noted that the majority

THE AMERICAN BOTANiIST. 69

are marked either abundant or common. This bears out the
impHcation made that though the flora is extremely hmited as
regards the number of species, it is at no time lacking in
flowers, but on the contrary is more heavily spread with bloom
than any other locality adjacent.

LIST OF SPECIES.

Taraxacum officinale. Dandelion. Abundant.

'Antennaria sp? Mouse-ear plantain. Common.

Fragaria Virginica. Strawberry. Abundant.

Carex Pennsylvanica. Sedge. Abundant.

Viola Spf Blue violet. A species near ovata. Very abundant.

Pedicularis Canadensis. Lousewort. Common.

O.valis violacca. Purple oxalis. Not common.

Hoiistonia coerulea. Bluets. Common.

Claytonia Virginica. Spring beauty. Rare.

Hypoxis erecta. Star grass. Abundant.

Viola lanceolata. Lance-leaved violet. Abundant.

Viola ohliqua. Common blue violet. Not Common.

Viola pedata. Bird-foot violet. Rare. On sand banks only,

Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum. Blueberry. Rare, in sand.

Vaccinium Canadense. Blueberry. Rare ; with the preceding.

Commandra umbellata. False toad-flax. Abundant.

Dodecatheon media. Shooting star. Not common.

Potentilla Canadensis. Cinquefoil. Abundant.

Phlox pilosa. Downy phlox. Common.

Zizia aurea. Golden Alexanders. Tolerablv common.

Lithosperum puhescens. Orange puccoon. Not common.

Lithospermmn angustifolinm. Yellow puccoon. Rare.

Ranuncidus cymhalaria. Celandine. Very rare.

Castilleja coccinea. Painted cup. Abundant.

Senecio aureus. Squaw-seed. Very abundant.

Heuchera Americana. Alum root. Common.

Sisyrinchium spf Blued-eyed grass. Common.

Krigia Virginica. Cynthia. Abundant.

70 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST.

Lobelia spicafa. Spiked lobelin. Common.

Lathyrtts pahistris. Vetch. Common.

Rudbeckia hirta. Black-eyed Susan. Very abundant.

Rosa blanda. Smooth wild rose. Plentiful.

Oenothera spf Sundrops. Abundant.

Erigeron stringosiis. Daisy fleabane. Abundant.

Calopogon pidchelhis. Grass pink. Abundant.

Achillea millefolium. Yarrow. Plentiful.

Iris versicolor. (Blue flag. Common.

Polytaenia Nuttallii. Not common.

Cacalia planfaginca. Indian plantain. Common.

Parthenium integrifolium. Prairie dock. Common.

Phlox glaberriina. Meadow phlox. Abundant.

Lythrum alatum. Loosestrife. Abundant.

A SUNNY CROP.
By Miss Nell McMurray.

THROUGHOUT the summer the g-oldenrods have been de-
mure and busily storing sunshine ; late in the season the
sunshine re-appears in their flowers — in hedges, by the road-
side and in forsaken fields — making ideal spots for the storing
of sunny thoughts in a walker's heart.

The earliest and the latest the smallest and the straight-
est, of this group of golden flowers, is Solidago crecta. We
may find it blooming from the middle of August to the middle
of October. Even so late as the middle of November a bit of
yellow may be seen in the tiny leaves that enclose some of the
late seeds. The plant is stiff and displays small clusters of
pale yellow flowers in the axils of its upper leaves. 'Tis a plain
creature but has good lasting qualities.

Solidago nemoralis is rather lowly, but full of grace and
brightens a field more than any other of these friends. The
deep, bright yellow flower-heads are crowded into dense, droop-
ing clusters. 5^. nemoralis keeps 6^. crecta company by con-

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 71

tinning its blooming- after the others have faded, the lowliest
keeping their beauty longest.

The tall S. jiincea is the most graceful and grows in small
clumps. The rather pale yellow flowers are in small heads
which are arranged in loose, spreading clusters. It blooms
early and we are tempted to carry it home though it is most
beautiful where it waves above the wild grass in the field.

Our most common goldenrod, 6^. rugosa, is tall, sturdy and
forms compact hedges in fence rows and great colonies in
swampy fields. The flower cluster is broad and spreading.
Only a few of the green-yellow florets are open at one time,
making it a dingy goldenrod. When the sunny days of the
rank rugosa are past, it often cleverly hides the stately bloom-
ing ladies tresses. One wonders at the congeniality of such
plants !

The flowers of vS. graminifolia resemble those of rugosa
in color, being green-yellow, dull for a goldenrod. The flat
topped flower cluster is a striking feature of this sturdy, com-
mon plant.

Our Vvhite goldenrod, S. bicolor, is more appropriately
called silver-rod. It grows in small, scattered clumps and is
sometimes tall — though it always has an unassuming appear-
ance. The white florets are small and the heads are crowded in
short recemes in the axils of the upper leaves.

A clump of the handsome, tall goldenrod, vS. altissima at-
tracts attention when one is across the field from it. The
prominent, pyramidal cluster of yellow heads is fluffy, feathery
and a bright yellow. Nearly all the florets are open at one
time. Why is it fluffy? Because the pistil and stamens extend
beyond the corolla and the strap-like corollas are long, narrow
and numerous.

S. canadensis, somewhat resembling altissima, grows in
a large mass in an old field. It is short in stature, has smaller
flower clusters and the corolla is a paler yellow than 5. altis-
sima.

72 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST.

The wanderer, S. cacsia,, lives far from our other golden-
rods, in the deep, moist, deciduous woods. The prettiest
plants have simple stems, drooping- gracefully. One notices
at once the tiny clusters of flower heads in the axils of the up-
per leaves. Though the heads have few ray flowers, the co-
rollas are large and bright, the disk flowers are also few and
bright. Each species has its own shade of yellow while in
flower and when the gray days have come and the seeds fly
away under a fairy sail, each species retains enough individu-
ality to distinguish it from its neighbors.

These sunny flowers make sunny hours — not alone when
blooming in the field. The result of their labor extends far
into the cold winter, when sunny thoughts make sunny hearts.

Nezu Washington, Pa.

THREE BIG PERENNIAL ROOTS.

By Elmer Stearns.

FIFTY miles south of Juarez, Mexico the Candelaria ranch,
owned by the Escobar Brothers of this Agricultural Col-
lege is located and this was recently the scene of a few days
pleasant work collecting plants for the College Herbarium and
for the Mexican Government. I was met at the train by Ca-
milo, the manager of the ranch, a typical, thin, wiry Mexican
of about 50 years of age, and ready ahvays to help me in any-
way possible.

The ranch house is about 5 miles from the station. Upon
reaching it we indulged in a "regular fare" meal, which you
either eat or go hungry : — beans, tortillas, and coffee. They
make some cheese at this ranch so we had both milk and a white
curd cheese in addition. The floor of the dining room is packed
dirt, the chairs are benches, in one corner is the cheese press
another had a sitting hen, and besides her lay a big brown grey-
hound. Another corner was the fireplace where the Senora sat
baking our tortillas, while on the beams that supported the dirt

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 73

roof were a number of swallow nests whose owners flew over
the table on their trips throug-h the door.

Early in the morning- we hitched up a span of little, wiry
mules and started for Rancheria Mountain, some 10 miles
away. The first 5 miles was across about as dry a region as
one could expect to see, nothing green in sight except the scat-
tered plants of the pretty Jatropha macrorhiaa, which the Mexi-
cans call " Jicamilla" this name being- given for its resemblance
' to "Jicama" a species which is a common food product among
them. Tlie plants were in flower and presented a very attrac-
tive appearance, everything else being brown and parched,
since there had been no rain for about a year. We began to
dig out the root, which was of about three pounds weight, and
was located about 8 inches beneath the surface of the soil. It
was no easy matter to get it out. A very good description of
this plant is found in "Botany of West Texas," in Vol 2 "Con-
tributions to the National Herbarium."

Passing on a little distance we saw flowers of a pretty
yellow color, standing up, several inches above the prostrate
plants. This is what is locally called "Melon del Coyote" and is
Apondanthera iindidata also described in the Botany of West
Texas. It has a perennial root of a russet brown color on the
surface, which is also located deep in the hard, dry soil. From
the summit, there grows a stem of the same scaly brown color
and when it reaches the surface of the ground, the regular
green stems grow out, branching very freely in all directions.
The male flowers are in thick, erect racemose corymbs, and
from the axils of the lower leaves while the female flowers are
solitary in the upper axils. There may be 10 or 15 bright yel-
low male flowers in each raceme, and when they are all open in
the morning they present a most attractive sight. The fruit is
round, reddish yellow and 7 to 10 centimeters in diameter.

Going up into the foothills of the mountain we came upon
Maximozvicda tripartita, Var. tcuuisecta, this plant has a
brownish, scaly and conical root, weighing several pounds.

74 THE AiMERICAN BOTANIST.

buried some 6 to 10 inches below the soil. It took quite an ef-
fort to get it out, but I have roots of all three plants growing
in my garden. They will, no doubt, all fruit with me. They
are all very interesting and might be improved by crossing and
made still more useful. Some study has been given the Ji-
comilla by a Mexican Botanist of Chihuahua, Dr. Hernandez.
After collecting many other plants along the route, we came
into the Rancharia Mountains and about the first thing of in-
terest, after a good feast on the ripe fruit of Cercits stramincits,
which grows in great abundance there, we came upon a part of
the mountain where large areas were so well covered with
Selaginella lepidophylla that bushels could be gathered. We
then sat down to a lunch of tortillas, beans, meat and cold cof-
fee and then returned to the ranch, killing a rattler on the way.

A NEW SPECIES OF PHLOX.

By Willard N. Clute and James H. Ferriss.

AMONG the flowers of late spring that make the prairies
and woodlands of northeastern Illinois a riot of color,
four species of phlox are conspicuous. The well-known ^weec
William (PJiIox divaricata) is first to appear, its favorite haunt
being the moist open woods where it thrives in spite of the an-
nual cropping by cattle. For long distances it spreads among
the trees in unbroken sheets of purplish bloom and it may even
venture into the open fields where, however, it comes into com-
petition with another species. This latter species is the downy
phlox (P. pilosa) a characteristically prairie species with small
clusters of pink flowers that are familiar features of open road-
sides, railway embankments and sandy barrens but show no
tendency to invade the woodlands. Phlox divaricata begins to
bloom about the middle of April, varying somewhat according
to season, and pilosa usually appears about three weeks later.

Late in June, more than a month after divaricata has
ceased blooming and a safe distance behind the flowering sea-

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 75

son of pilosa, the deep pink flower-clusters of the meadow phlox
{Phlox glaberrima) begin to appear in low grounds. This is
easily our handsomest phlox with its profusion of large flowers
of deepest pink borne at the top of smooth wandlike stems that
rise above the grasses amidst which it grows.

Until recently this was supposed to complete the list of the
native phloxes of this region, notwithstanding the fact that
another species has always been present, has frequently been
collected by botanists and has been in cultivation for some time.
This species has long been confused with pilosa and, indeed,
when the plant is studied in the herbarium instead of in the
field it is so nearly like it as to deceive the very elect. Never-
theless it has characteristics so distinct, albeit they are not of a
structural nature, that we unhesitatingly assert its distincness
as

PHLOX ARGILLACEA N. S.

Stems erect, tufted, downy, 18-30 inches high, usually
branched above. Leaves light green, downy, especially on the
margins, narrowly lanceolate or linear, long pointed, with mar-
gins inclined to be revolute, sessile. Flower cluster rather
open, many flowered forming a level cyme. Flowers short-
pedicelled. Calyx and bracts, glandular hispid the long and
very attenuate calyx tips especially so. Tube of the corolla,
half an inch or more long, purplish and pubescent on the out-
side. Limb white or occasionally pale lilac about half an
inch in diameter, its divisions entire, round ended, narrowed
below with margins usually revolute, each marked near the
throat with two linear, pale lilac nectar guides. Young seed
pods viscid. Flowers fragrant. Found in shaded or exposed
clay or sandy soil seeming to prefer the former. Oak Forest,
Cook County, Illinois and Liverpool, Lake County, Indiana.
Flowering season from about June 1st to August 1st. Type in
the herbarium of J. H. Ferriss.

Although, as we have indicated, the structure of this spe-
cies is very similar to that of pilosa^anyonQ familiar with the

76 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST.

two species as they grow in field or garden has no difficulty in
distinguishing them. The new species is well characterized by
its lighter green leaves, greater height, less compact flower-
clusters, restricted habitat and above all by its pale flowers and
later and longer season of bloom. Argillacea does not begin
to bloom until some time after pilosa has passed its prime and
when in full bloom no flowers of pilosa are to be found. The
height of its blooming season is the season at which the first
blooms of glaherrima unfold. Argillacea averages nearly
twice as tall as pilosa and generally forms more compact
clumps sending up a succession of flowering stems. One of the
most singular circumstances connected with its distribution is
the fact that while many roads and railroads lead from its
habitat across the prairie, argillacea declines to venture along
them while pilosa is abundant throughout. It is evident that
the descriptions of pilosa in the manuals have been drawn to
cover these two forms but there is too great a difference in
their time of blooming, color, size and habitat to admit of the
two being grouped as one species. For some time the plant
has been under observation in the garden growing close beside
pilosa and in the same kind of soil and under similar treatment
shows no tendency to intergrade with it. Albino forms of
pilosa, which bloom at the same time as the normal plant and
have the same general appearance have also been under culti-
vation by us and in no way resemble the new plant except in
the lighter color of the flowers. The albino flowers of pilosa
are, in fact, pure white, while argillacea appears to always be
lilac-tinged, at least as regards the tube of the corolla.

Bird-foot Violet Leaves. — It would not be difficult to
induce the student of plants to agree to put the bird-foot violet
{Viola pedata) in a genus by itself. It is so unlike the other
American violets that it has always occupied a separate section
in the violet genus, and it would not be straining matters much
if the section itself were expanded into a genus. One of the
most interesting and unique of this violet's characteristics is the
way it has of bearing its two sets of leaves. As most stu-
dents are aware, the violets are inclined to produce two sets
of leaves that differ considerably in appearance. In our com-
mon violets, however, one set of leaves succeeds the other
gradually, each new leaf having fewer of the characteristics
of the early leaves, and more of the characteristics of others to
come later. In the bird-foot violet, this succession is managed
quite differently. When spring has really begun, the bird-
foot violet sends up its flowers, accompanied by long-stalked,
deeply-cut leaves. These remain on the plant until the seeds
are ripe, but since this violet grows in sandy soils exposed to
frequent summer drouths, the leaves may entirely disappear
during the warmer parts of the year. Late in summer, when
cooler weather and more copious showers make a more propit-
ious season, a new set of leaves are produced that are much
different from the first set. They are very short stemmed,

78 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST.

rounded in outline with smaller and less narrowly divided
leaflets. This second set of leaves remains on the plant
throughout the winter in sheltered situations and give place
to the other leaves in spring.

Imported Insect Pests. — Everyone who owns a garden
is fully awake to the harmfulness of our insect pests. It is
frequently an impossibility to raise certain crops that are the
favorite food of such insects. Many of these pests came to us
from foreign parts in poorly inspected nursery stock; in fact
most of our worst pests are of Old World origin. Among the
number may be named the hessian fly, asparagus beetle, hop-
louse, cabbage womi, house fly, wheat louse, oyster shell bark
louse, pea weevil, gypsy moth, brown tail moth and croton bug.
Among introductions from other parts of the world are San
Jose scale, Argentine ant, cotton boll weevil and alfalfa leaf
weevil. These cause more than a billion dollars damage to cul-
tivated crops annually and seem to be increasing in numbers in
spite of the means taken to combat them.

Changes in Ivy Leaves. — I have never happened to see
recorded the fact of such a marked change in shape of the leaf
as occurs with ivy whenever it flowers. The change is from
the ordinary type to a broadly ovate outline without indenta-
tions, resembling in form, though not in color or texture, those
of some species of Popithts. Whenever leaves of that shape
are found on the English ivy, flowers are usually to be found.-
This season, a similar change in the form of the leaf was noted
on some parsley plants which have been persistently striving
to flower, and run to seed, and it seems likely that closer obser-
vation may show the same thing with many other plants. —
Ehvyn Waller, Morristozvn, N. J. [Lord Avebury, in his
"British Flowering Plants" alludes to this change in form and
mentions Fiats repens as another species of similar habits. In
suggesting a reason for such changes, he says: "It is important
to the leaves to secure as much light and air as possible, and

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 79

when growing on a flat surface the ivy shape enables the leaves
to fit into one another and to cover the whole surface. On the
other hand the flowering branches grow up into the air. The
leaves are arranged round the stem and under these conditions
an oval form is more suitable. According to the same writer
the interior of the leaf differs according to the amount of light
it receives. In the sun two layers of palisade cells are develop-
ed under the upper epidermis while in the shade the whole in-
terior of the leaf consists of rounded cells. The same thing
is said to be true of the leaves of the common dandelion.
Ed.]

The Pollination of Yucca. — The pollination of the
various species of yucca by the pronuba moth, although well
known is a never failing source of wonder and interest to the
flower lover. Here we have a flower whose six stamens are
far too short to be of use in pollinating the individual blossom
in which they live, and a pistil whose receptive surface is so
located that neither the wind nor the ordinary visiting insect
is effective in pollination. At this juncture the special guar-
dian of the flower, the pronuba moth comes in. Gathering
the pollen from the anthers by mouth parts specially formed
for the purpose she deliberately flies to another flower, climbs
up to the stigmatic chamber and packs the pollen into it with
a sort of hammering motion that is plainly visible to the ob-
server. Without these ministrations of the moth, the yucca is
incapable of setting seed and its distribution or spread in the
wild state is absolutely dependent upon this, otherwise insig-
nificant insect. All this is wonderful enough but not half so
interesting as the questions it raises. Back of the way in which
pollination is effected lie the speculations as to how this asso-
ciation of insect and flower have been brought about. When
did the species learn that it could safely trust its continued ex-
istence to the ministrations of an animal and how did it happen
that the body of this insect was modified at just the right time
and in just the right w^ay to be of service to the plant? To be

80 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST.

sure the insect does not guard the yucca for mere pleasure for
before she places the pollen on the stigma she prudently lays
one or more eggs in the ovary where the larvae can feed upon
the developing seeds, but how did she know that pollination
was necessary to seed formation — many a grown up human be-
ing does not know that ! And even knowing this, how did she
discover how to go about the work of pollination? Among
the "lords of creation" only a few specialists are familiar with
the process. Probably this is the only insect in the world that
intentionally cross pollinates flowers. Nature has been kind
to the moth also in the matter of dress. She is colored exactly
like the stamens and when resting head down in the flower — ■
her favorite position during the day — can hardly be distin-
guished from those organs. Just before dusk she begins her
self-appointed task and any body who has access to a clump
of blooming yuccas may see her at work if they will. Her
progeny, fond as they are of young yucca seeds, always leave
some to ripen and thus keep up the supply of yucca plants.

Orientation of Radishes. — A short time ago. Horti-
culture published a story to the effect that a Jap has discovered
that the radish and other root crops always put out their lateral
roots in an east and west direction, in consequence of which
we were advised to always plant such crops in rows running
north and south so that the lateral roots might push out into
the soil between the rows and thus get more food. A little
observation however has shown that the Jap was only partly
right. The basis for his statements is simply this : the radish
produces its lateral roots in two lines lengthwise of the main
root. Sometimes these push out east and west and sometimes
north and south. It seems to be merely incidental which way
the roots should project; otherwise we should have to give the
plant credit for ability to discern the points of the compass, — a
thing no plant can do. Even the compass plant turns its leaves
under the stimulus of heat or light, never magnetism. Other

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 81

root crops unlike the radish produce their rootlets upon all
sides of the tap root and thus a beautiful theory falls to the
ground and with it falls the hopes of the farmer who may have
been figuring upon greater profits from an educated race of
radishes.

Poisonous Hyacinths. — Some alarmist among the
plantsmen has discovered that among those who handle hya-
cinth bulbs there is an occasional case of inflammation of the
skin attributed to the irritation caused by the raphides from
these plants, and the suggestion has apparently been made
in all seriousness that this handsome spring flower be banished
from our gardens and the public parks. Whatever may be the
effects upon a few persons of handling hyacinth bulbs, it i^
certain that only a very few persons are thus affected, and it
would seem to be about as sensible to abolish hyacinth cul-
ture on this account as it would to banish strawberries be-
cause a few people break out with a rash after eating them,
or to cease keeping bees because an occasional individual is
subject to honey sickness.

The Branching of Trees. — In noticing tree branching
during the past winter, with a view to directing children to-
ward observation of that kind, calling attention to the most
obvious point — the central axis — has seemed to be probably
the best starting point. The insistence of conifers on main-
taining the central axis to such an extent that if the top has
been broken off by wind or another tree falling on it one of the
branches of the topmost whorl will turn upright and take the
lead ; on the other hand with the hardwood trees, there is a
tendency more or less marked to split up the central axis until
there is practically no main trunk,- of which the elm is the most
marked example. Of course next would come the direction
taken by the branches as they leave the main stem. Usually
a compromise between a tendency to grow at right angles to

82 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST.

the stem they are leaving and a tendency to grow perpen-
dicularly upward. In the hardwoods the white oak seems to
be the most successful in driving its lower branches out hori-
zontally, which gives a particularly sturdy appearance. — El-
wyn Waller,, Morristozvn, N. J.

Cleavage Planes of Smilax. — The common green
briar or cat briar {Smilax) of low thickets and fence rows
is uique in several respects. For one thing it, and the other
species of the genus, are the only woody monocotyledons in
the Northern States and in some places comes near to com-
peting with the yucca for the title of the only evergreen
monocot. Late in the year the green briar reluctlantly drops-
its leaf blades and then we discover that unlike monocots in
general it has developed cleavage planes to assist in getting
rid of them. It is interesting to know that monocots can de-
velop cleavage planes when necessary and still more interest-
ing in this particular case to discover that the plane is not
developed where the leaf joins the stem of the plant as in
most species, but occurs where the leaf-blade joins the petiole
and leaves the latter as a short hard stub guarding the lateral
bud all winter. It is possible that this protection to the bud
is one of the reasons why the petiole is not cut off, but the
most important is evidently the fact that the stipules act as
tendrils and to cut off the whole leaf would leave the plant
without support.

Curious Forms of Gaillardia. — On the prairie of the
middle west and extending into Louisiana and Texas grow
several species of showy composites that have been introduced
into cultivation under the name of blanket flower. Some of
the species are annual and others perennial, but from various
indications it is likely that those cultivated may be hybrids. At
any rate they are among the showiest of our garden plants be-
ginning about mid-June to put up large daisy-like heads whose
rays are bright yellow at the tips and deep red at the base. The

THE AiMERiICAN BOTANIST. 83

disk flowers, also, are brownish red. Many variations of
coloring in the ray flowers occur. Some are all yellow but in
most the red is very conspicuous. Normally the rays are flat
and three parted at the tips, but in the editor's garden, there
has appeared for the past two summers a form in v;hich the
ray flowers are replaced by large tubular flowers three- four-or
five-parted, Vv'ith yellow borders and deep red throats. The de-
viation is in sharp contrast to the usual form and makes the
variants look like a different species. After one has cultivated
the wild flowers a while, he loses a great deal of respect for the
minute distinctions of the systematist. In the herbarium it
may appear that a hard and fast line bounds each species, but
in nature it is not so.

Variations in Composites. — Most persons, whether
botanists or not, can recognize the inflorescence of the great
composite family at sight. To the uninitiated a dandelion or
daisy may be a single flower instead of the compact bunch of
flowers with which the botanist is familiar but the general ar-
rangement is such that an unfamiliar member of the family is
recognized at once. But while a fundamental type is discern-
ible in all these flower heads, this is so overlaid and modified by
variations of different kinds that the diversity exhibited by
nearly twelve hundred species is easily within the limits. At
the outset we find the family naturally falling into several lesser
groups according as their flowers are all tubular, all strap
shaped or a combination of the two. In our southern states
and elsewhere in the tropics the section with heads of tubular
flowers again divides into species with regular florets and
others with two lipped corollas. The members of the compos-
itae are practically never double in the sense that we speak of
a double rose or butter-cup. All double composites are
derived from species that normally have disk and ray
flowers that differ in form. In such, the disk flowd's
may take on the form of the rays, and give us sucii

84 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST.

forms as "double" daisies, sunflowers, dahlias, and the
like. To these variations in the general form and arrange-
ment of the florets must be added the differences that exist ir;
the manner of producing seeds. In some the outer circle — the
ray flowers — are the only ones that are fertile, in others only
the disk flowers bear seeds, while in still others both ray and
disk flowers participate in seed bearing. Normally the disk
flowers bear both stamens and carpels, but either set may be
missing and the same is true of the ray flowers. Another cur-
ious thing is connected with their colors. As everybody
knows, certain genera may run to yellow-flowered forms and
others to blue pink or purple but a single genus rarely contains
species with flowers of both colors. In the genera with yello\v
flowers albinos are rare — who ever saw a white dandelion, or
sunflower? — but in the blue and red flowered genera albinos
are common. As might be inferred from their structure, the
greatest amount of variation, aside from such qualities as
height, hairiness, and leaf forms, is to be found in those flower
heads that possess both ray and disk flowers. Here variation
may be manifested in the number of rays or in their shape.
Quilled forms which after all are possibly reversions to the
original form of the flower, are common and when the rays are
flat there is often a great difference in their width. Fascia-
tions of various kinds also occur. One has only to search the
nearest field of daisies, black-eyed Susans, or any abundant
composite to discover many of these variations for himself.

The Struggle for Existence. — The results of Dar-
win's remarkable work are so widely known that practically
everybody has at least a theoretical knowledge of the struggle
for existence, but few really realize how important a factor
this is in the life history of a given plant. Recently the writer
was impressed with this when examining an especially florifer-
ous species of mullein of European origin known as Vcrhas-
cum pannosum. A careful count of an average flower spike

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 85

discovered the fact that there were on the single plant no less
than twelve hundred and eig-hty-seven flowers and flower-buds.
Nearly all species of mullein set seed freely and this species
is no exception. Allowing thirty seeds to a capsule, which is
rather under the average than above it, we have more than four
thousand seeds from a single plant. It is little wonder that
mulleins are common in suitable places. All these seeds, how-
ever, cannot grow though doubtless many spring up only to
be crowded out by some relative more fortunately situated. A
short time ago, we observed great numbers of some seedling
spurge growing in a low spot in a meadow and out of curiosity
removed a square inch of soil and counted the number of seed-
lings upon it. There were one hundred and seventeen, each
trying to develop in a space not large enough for one, and in
the midst of square yards as thickly populated.

The Tallest Tree. — In New South Wales, Victoria and
Tasmania grows a species of gum-tree. Eucalyptus amygdalinn
which probably represents the tallest of all trees on the globe.
The loftiest specimen of this tree yet measured towers to the
heig'ht of four hundred and seventy-one feet. A prostrate
tree measured in Victoria, was four hundred and twenty feet
long and the distance from the roots to the lowest branch was
two hundred and ninety-five feet. At that point the trunk
was four feet in diameter, and three hundred and sixty feet
from the butt the diameter was still three feet. The wood of
this tree is hard and of good quality. It grows quickly and
yields a great quantity of volatile oil from its leaves .vhich
are very abundant.

Swamp Vegetation of Japan. — We are frequently told
that the vegetation of Japan and Eastern North America re-
semble each other in a number of particulars, but we rarely ap-
preciate how close the resemblance is at times. A Japanese
botanist has recently published in the Botanical Magazine an ac-
count of the vegetation of a swamp near Tokyo, and the list of

86 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST.

species reads like that which one in the Eastern States
might make for his own localit3^ In this list we
note the identical species we have at home of eel
grass (Vallisnera), pondweed (Potamogeton), water mil-
foil (Myriophylhwt) hornwort (Ceratophyllum), wild
rice {Zkania) cat-tail (Typha), bladder wort (Utricu-
laria), reed (Phragmitcs) , water plantain (Alisma),
sweet flag (Acorns), smart weed (Polygonum) and butter-
cup (Ranunculus), while many other genera common to the
two regions are found, such as Azolla, Salvinia, Nymphaea,
Brasenia, Scirpus and Nuphar. Botanizing along the water-
ways of Japan would be much like an expedition in our own
country and lack many of the elements of novelty. In drier
ground, however, there would be a greater difference. The
water vegetation consists almost entirely of simple forms that
are widely distributed over the earth.

Tricotyledons. — While thinning out some radish seed-
lings the other day I found two that, instead of having two
seed-leaves or cotyledons, had three. This abnormal condi-
tion has, I believe, been observed in other plants, but it occurs
very rarely. — Edwin W. Humphreys, Nczv York. [De Vries
notes in his "Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation"
that tricotyledons are more numerous in some species than in
others. By careful breeding he was able to obtain in some in-
stances 90% of tricotyledons in a given crop of seedlings, but
in other cases only one or two plants in a hundred had the ab-
normality. Another interesting form that may be looked for
whenever large numbers of seeds are soAvn is one in which the
cotyledons are united. This occurs as often in some species,
as tricotyledons do. While two is the highest number of cotyle-
dons any plant normally bears, execept in the pines where they
may be as many as fifteen, it is not rare to find four, five or
even more cotvledons. — Ed.]

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 87

Biennials. — The carrot is a biennial — so the books say —
but it is not uncommon to find in a field of carrots, specimens
that fruit the summer the seeds were planted. The whole
philosophy underlying the development of biennials is that cer-
tain plants must first secure a store of food before they can
form their flowers and seeds. It takes the radish only a few
weeks to accomplish this, but carrots, parsnips, salsify and the
like require a longer period. When the season happens to be
favorable and enough food is secured there is no reason why
these plants should not follow the example of the radish. The
conception of a biennial therefore, is not as definite as that of
the annual or perennial. Biennials are more likely to be influ-
enced by weather and climate. In regions with a long growing
season, the line between annuals and biennials breaks down
more or less completely.

Storage Organ of the Live Oak. — A large number of
plants store their food in their roots and this is supposed to be
because it is safer there, being protected by the earth from too
great evaporation, many animals, and various other harmful
agencies. Storage of food in this way is usually carried on by
mature plants ; it is seldom that one finds a mere seedling so
worldly wise. Such cases occur, however. The seedlings of
the giant cactus apparently appreciating the fact that they are
to grow in a dry region store up a quantity of water in the
caulicle, and often in this way become attractive morsels to birds
and other animals on the lookout for juicy food. The seedling
of the live oak does not store up water and it has no need to
store food at once, since, like other oak seedlings it has been
provided with a good sized food store within the cotyledons,
but it does not seem satisfied to follow the custom of the others
and draw upon this foodstore as needed. Instead it sends out
upon germination, a much elongated common petiole which
enables the short root to penetrate the soil. Then the young
root enlarges, and the food stored* in the acorn is promptly car-

88 THE AJMERICAN BOTANIST.

ried down and deposited in the root. Having- thus got its
food down into the soil out of harm's way, the young stem
begins to grow from the top of the root pushing apart the base
of the long petiole to do so. The process is illustrated in the
Plant World for May.

Sterilizing the Soil. — Every spring I bum up dried
leaves, brush from pruning and other litter of the kind, on the
ground which is afterwards spaded and seeded down. It has
been noticed that the plants were most luxuriant at the spots
where the fire was made. The simple fact of fertilization by
the plant ashes alone was found by experiment to be insufficient
to account for the difference, because hoeing off the ashes and
spading them in in another place did not cause quite so vigor-
ous a plant growth. Having in mind, numerous experiments
as to sterilizing soils before seeding down, which have recently
been recorded, the experiment was tried of spreading the litter
so far as might be over the major part of the garden plot, be-
fore burning it up. That v/as tried this spring with veiT good
results. It is noticeable that wherever the fire burned fiercest
or longest, the soil appears more fertile, though in all other re-
spects the treatment was uniform. The results are almost un-
expected for it seems scarcely possible that a sterilizing effect
could have extended as deeply as the length of a spade blade,
yet after burning over the soil was turned up by spading- to that
depth. Our soil is very sandy, nnd in the garden plot only
shows humus to the depth to v,'hich it has been cutivated by
digging in manure, leaf mould, etc. Below that the sandy
character is so pronounced that our builders (masons, etc.)
seldom if ever haul sand for their mortar, but can almost every
where, dig up all the sand they may need for ordinary work.
— Ehvyn Waller, Morristozmi, N. J.

I^^SCHOOL BOTANY

THE LACK OF INTEREST IN NATURE.

It is now more than a quarter of a centui-y since the first
books on science designed to make the way smooth for the be-
ginner appeared, and nearly as long since the sciences obtained
a foot-hold in all representative high schools, but now, notwith-
standing the fact that the generation which has taken charge
of the world's work has had access to this literature, has been
educated in such high schools, and has had such education ex-
tended in better equipped college laboratories than the world
has ever seen before, the interest in nature or in science for its
own sake seems not to have increased at all. In proportion to
the total population, there were probably more botanists a hun-
dred years ago than there are at the present time, and the same
statement doubtless holds good for zoologists as well. We
hear a good deal, nowadays about the movement "back to na-
ture" but this is more a movement in suburban real estate
fostered by the development of electric railways and automo-
biles than it is by the love of nature for her own sake. It is
likely that a few enthusiastic devotees will continue to write
books that attract only an accasional reader, edit magazines
that have most meagre subscription lists and hope against hope
that after labor enough has been expended the tide will turn
and everybody take an interest in what they know to be a most
interesting and attractive subject, but if the future may be
judged by the past, they are doomed to disappointment. If
they expect adequate results from their efforts they might bet-
ter at once enlist as missionaries to the South Sea islands.
When botany began to find a place in every reputable high
school, it was expected that this would soon develop a vast

90 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST.

army of plant lovers, but the expectation failed to be realized ;
in fact, it is the opinion of a good many who have carefully
observed the proceedings, that one of the most efficient means
of setting- the student against botany is the average botanical
course in the high school. The reason for this lies partly in
the course itself and partly in the teacher. In most schools
both teacher and student consider botany as a task — possibly
not quite so irksome as geometry or latin but a task, neverthe-
less. The student is introduced to much pickled or dried ma-
terial and many sections and disconnected parts of plants which
he has never seen in nature from which he is made to learn a
satisfactory number of facts upon pain of failure to "pass" in
the study. The average teacher is prone to place discipline
above interest, and a well filled note book above the power to
see and to judge and the lessons are conducted upon lines that
would do equally well for a class in ancient history. Nobody
need expect much from the teaching of botany until it is taught
out of doors by teachers interested in the work. The matter
of interest upon the part of the teacher is one that those in au-
thority commonly overlook. The classes in botany are usu-
ally turned over to anyone on the faculty who has not enough
work in her own specialty to keep her busy. But even among
those who teach botany by preference few are deeply interested
in the subject. One who would know something of the bot-
any of the region cannot rely for this information upon the
teacher of botany in the high school. Generally speaking
such teachers make no pretense to a wide knowledge of the
subject. They read no botanical works, they subscribe for no
botanical publications, they write no botanical papers, they
make no original investigations; they are in a wora, luere
faculty members. If by some accident they attend a meeting
of botanists they join the audience of mute and respectful
listeners with nothing to say when discussion waxes interest-
ing. How even the enthusiast can expect such an apology to
turn out students with an abiding interest in, and love for.

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 91

botany is beyond the comprehension of common mortals. What
this country needs is more real botanists as teachers, easier ac-
cess to nature, more encouragement of individual effort and
less discipline for disciplines sake in the laboratory. When
these ends are attained we shall hear fewer complaints that the
public is not interested in the study of nature.

Dimorphic Branches. — The United States Bureau of
Plant Industry recently issued a bulletin on "Dimorphic
Branches of Tropical Crop Plants" in which it is shown that
in cotton, coffee, cacao, banana and others there are two kinds
of branches one of which produces fruit while the other is de-
voted to vegetative functions. In some species the fruiting
branches rise from axillary buds and in others they are extra
axillary. The fact that many plants bear two kinds of
branches has long been known. In the pines there are not only
two kinds of branches as regards function, but they
differ as regards form and each bears a different kind
of leaf. In the ginkgo the fruits are borne on cer-
tain dwarf branches, and similar dwarf fruiting
branches may be seen in the apples, pears, plums and
cherries of our gardens. Here they are called "fruit spurs"
but they are none the less branches that are quite different in
form from ordinary branches. They may often be only an
inch long and yet a dozen years old. In the cotton plant the
branches that arise from the axils of the leaves have purely
vegetative functions while those that produce the cotton are de-
veloped from extra-axillary buds. For this latter style of bud
the author proposes the term natal bud, possibly overlooking
the fact that this type is well known as an accessory or super-
numerary bud and is so discussed in all school courses. It is
in no sense an adventitious bud but has a definite place at which
to appear.

— TN EDITORIAL /7==— -

In the April issue of this magazine, we promised to have
the present number out on time, little thinking- that we would
again have to give as a reason for delay that a fire had occurred
in the printing office. Just a week after the April issue appear-
ed, however, the ninth and final fire, now known to be of incen-
diary origin, completely destroyed the office. There was
nothing to do, therefore, but to wait until new machinery could
be purchased and installed, and issue the number as soon as pos-
sible. The fact that this last fire has been proven to be the work
of a fire-bug makes it appear that the earlier fires with which
we have had to contend, were due to the same cause. In the
future, however, we expect to be exempt from such delays, since
the printing company is now in an absolutely fire-proof struc-
ture isolated from other buildings of a combustible nature.
The average editor thinks he has enough to do in getting his
publication out on time, but a little variety has been injected
into our program by three fires in one year and various other
little annoyances among which was a dishonest postman, who
for one whole subscription season waylaid the money that was
addressed to us and got our accounts with subscribers badly
tangled up in consequence. But we are still in the game and
not only expect to stay in, but can say definitely, now, that in
the not far distant future this magazine is to be increased to
nearly fifty pages without any increase in the subscription price.
We trust that our subscribers will overlook the present un-
avoidable delays and aid us in rolling up a subscription list that
will make a larger magazine worth while.

* * *

Nearly forty years ago, Prof. H. H. Ballard of Pittsfield,
Mass., founded a society designed to aid people of all ages in
the study of nature. This society was named the Agassiz As-
sociation in honor of the famous naturalist, Louis Agassiz and

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 93

for a quarter of a century it enjoyed great popularity. Thous-
ands of people who now have an intellig-ent interest in nature,
date the beginning- of this interest from the time they became
members of the Association. The society had been going a
decade or more before the editor of this magazine was old
enough to join it, but he still remembers with pleasure the
broad and attractive vista into the out door world which it
opened to him, and which has since only grown wider and more
attractive with the years. With the advent in recent years of a
multitude of books on all subjects pertaining to nature, the in-
terest in the Agassiz Association has languished somewhat,
but Dr. Edward F. Bigelow, of Sound Beach, Conn., has re-
cently been attempting to revive it. He is now president of
the Association and two years ago the way seemed clear for a
realization of his ambition, A wealthy resident of Sound
Beach, decided to give a plot of ground with necessary build-
ings to the Association, for use in carrying on its work. There
was a string tied to this gift, however; if the Society failed to
prove a success in two years the owner reserved the right to
take back his gift. Dr. Bigelow accepted land and buildings
with great joy, knowing that with such a start failure was im-
possible, but Dr. Bigelow's idea of success, it appears, did not
co-incide with that of his whiloam benefactor. The latter, fin-
ancially a success, was disposed to measure the success of
others by the same standard and when at the end of two years,
the society failed to show a good cash balance on the right side
of the ledger, Dr. Bigelow was turned out of the eden he had
created, forthwith. Not discouraged by this rebuff the inde-
fatiguable Bigelow has started out to secure another and better
home for the Association with apparently every prospect of suc-
cess. A railway company has deeded to the Association more
than an acre of forest land, and friends have already contributed
upwards of two thousand dollars in cash for new buildings and
equipment. More funds are necessary, however, for an ade-
quate establishment of the work and Dr. Bigelow will be glad

94 THE A/MERICAN BOTANIST.

to receive additional contributions no matter how small.
Everyone interested in the study of nature will wish, of course,
to be represented in the undertaking by at least a small con-
tribution. The object of the Association is one worthy of all
encouragement.

BOOKS AND WRITERS.

Until very recently the origin of the flowering plants was
shrouded in considerable mystery. Fossils that are very evi-
dently closely related to modern species if, indeed, they are not
identical with them, are not uncommon in the later rocks, but
this series of specimens does not continue to the beginning and
the task has always been to connect them with some of the
older plant lines. Evidence that throws light upon this point,
however, has rapidly accumulated during the past few years,
and now the palaeobotanist is fairly certain of the main lines
of descent, at least. It used to be thought, and is still taught
in our schools, that the flowering plants originated from Algae
by way of the mosses, and much study has been brought to
bear upon the moss sporophyte in an endeavor to show how
the fern plant could have arisen from it. The evidence of
fossil plants, however, does not support this theory and it now
seems more likely that the ferns and their allies originated di-
rectly from some forms of algae. After this gap is bridged
over, there is still the hiatus between the ferns and flowering
plants. This, botanists have often attempted to carry a line
across by means of Lycopodiiim or Sclaginella, deriving the
pine cone from the fruiting parts of one or the other, and in-
ferring the rise of true flowers by further modifications. It is
now believed, however, that neither of these groups have given
rise to any more modern branch, and that the club mosses and
Selaginellas that we have at present have come down to us
from remote ages, practically unchanged except as to size, num-
bers and a few bizarre points in structure. The ferns, hither-

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 95

to reg'arded with little favor as the ancestors of flowering
plants_, are now considered as among the most likely species,
especially since the discovery that many once regarded as true
ferns, are really seed plants. The seed forming habit may have
originated more than once, but it is a significant fact that ferns
have been able to evolve it. The sago palms, or cycads, so
fern-like in some respects, so seed-plant like in others, is now
pretty generally regarded as the bridge between the ferns, and
pteridosperms or "seed ferns" and the flowering plants them-
selves. The line of descent is supposed to lead through the
Ranunculaceae or Magnoliaceae, whose reproductive parts are
not so very different from those of certain fossil cycads. The
pines and their allies are supposed to have arisen from the Cor-
daites an entirely extinct race of plants. According to this latest
idea of evolution, the dicotyledons are supposed to be older
than the monocotyledons, an arrangement that is the reverse
of the belief held by many. This whole fascinating subject is
taken up by a new book entitled The Evolution of Plants, by
D. H. Scott, published by Henry Holt & Co. Dr. Scott is one
of the foremost scientists in the study of fossil plants but has
not forgot how to write lucidly and entertainingly as his little
book shows. Those further interested in the evidence for the
conclusion drawn will find them adequately set down in the
book mentioned, which is published at 75 cents net.

For years, books on almost every conceivable phrase of
natural history have multiplied, but the great bulk of our popu-
lation is still densely ignorant of such matters. In time, if the
flood of good books continues, we may hope to see the natural
sciences take their rightful place in the estimation of the pub-
lic and therefore, welcome every new book that appears, as
another means to this end. Recently three different publish-
ing houses have begun series of scientific books designed to in-
terest and enlighten the general reader. The firm of D. Ap-
pleton & Co. are issuing a series of "Scientific Primers" under

96 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST.

the editorship of J. Reynolds Green. Of this Series we have
received the vohime on "Biology" by Harvey Gibson and that
on "Botany" by Green. Each volume covers about 125 pages,
is well illustrated and discusses the fundamental principles of
the subject of which it treats in a manner that must appeal very
strongly to the beginner. The price is not given but it is
probably less than 50 cents which brings the volume within
reach of all who need them.

From G. P. Putnam's Sons comes a "History of Biology"
by L. C. Miall one of the valumes is a "History of the Sciences
Series." This is likely to prove an entertaining and instructive
book to both zoologists and botanists since it gives an account
of the origin and growth of the twin sciences of botany and
zoology with the added merit that the information is in such
compact form that the relationships of the two sciences ?.re
easily understood. After an introduction devoted to the
biology of the ancients, the time since 1530 is divided into six
periods and the development of biology in each is outlined. It
is seldom that the botanist or zoologist has a clear idea of the
history of his chosen science but this book will supply the lack.
It is published at 75 cents net. Putnam's are also the Ameri-
Ccin agents for the series of "Cambridge Manuals of Science
and Literature," published by Cambridge University. We,
have already had the plasure of commending in these pages
an earlier volume on "Plant Animals" and have now received
"Plant Life on Land" by F. O. Bower. The reputation of
Prof. Bower as a botanist is sufficient guarantee that the book
contains interesting matter well presented. The ten essavs
that make up the book are largely ecological in character
though the early pages have a thread of evolution running
through them. The book has 150 pages and 26 illustrations
and costs 40c net.

ADD THESE TO YOUR LIST

Our Ferns in Their Haunts

By WiUard N. Clutc.

A complete and authoritative account of the ferns of Eastern
Ahicrica giving the life history, habits, common names, folk lore and
exact scientific descriptions of every species. Special attention has
been given to the rare and little known species and to the points for
identifying those that are much alike. 225 illustrations of rootstocks,
fronds, pinnae, sori, indusia, etc., make everything plain to the begin-
ner. An illustrated key enables even the novice to name his speci-
mens. There is no other fern book so useful or so comprehensive.
Octavo, 333 pages, bound in cloth. Price, $2.15 postpaid.

The Fern Allies of North America

By Willard N. Clute.

Laboratory Botany for the High School

By Willard N. Clute.

The Fern Collectors* Guide

By WUlard N. Clute.

A small volume of a size to fit the pocket pving the begrinner
directions for finding and naming his specimens and making an her-
barium. Has an illustrated key to all the species, a complete glos-
sary, and a check list of the ferns with space for notes. Cloth, 60
pages, sent postpaid for 54 cents.

The American Botanist or The Fern Bulletin will be lent 1 year
with an order from the above list for 50 cents additional.

Address all orders to

Willard N. Clute and Company
Joliet, Illinois.

School Science and Mathematics

The Journal for all Progressive Science and Mathematics Teachers

It gives new ideas and methods of scientific and mathematical instructions-
practical articles on the teaching of science and mathematics. Suggestive, illus>
trated descriptions of apparatus, experiments^ laboratory equipment and plans.
Short, newsy, helpful notes on the progress in science and mathematics. Speak
to your teacher, friends about it. Get them to subscribe. Supscriptions received
at any time. Yearly subscriptions, $2.00.

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THE NATURE-STUDY REVIEW

(Journal of the American Nature-Study Society) will continue during 1911 its
SPECIAL TEACHING NUMBERS of timely interest and permanent value

January — City Nature-Study May — Manual of Nature-Study Literature

February — Tree Studies September — Autumn Flowers and Weeds

March— Calendar Studies October— Children's Pets

April — Aquatic Studies November — Farm Studies

December — Health Number
We can still furnish copies (at 15c) of the most popular issues of 1910, as
follows:

MARCH— Bird Study (with 18 photographs)

APRIL— Garden Number

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SEPTEMBER — Insect Studies (copious illustrations, including color

plate of American butterflies)
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For Boys and Girls: Per Year For Everybody:

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VOLUME 17, NUMBER 4 WHOLE NUMBER 91

NOVEMBER. 1911

AMERICAN
BOTANIST

Devoted to Economic and Ecological Botany

CONTENTS

THE SMOOTH OR MEADOW PHLOX - 97

BY WILLARD N. CLUTE

NOVEMBER WAIFS 98

BY DR. W. W. BAILEY

ASTERS 100

BY. B. O. WOLDEN

ROOT PUNCTURED BY ROOT - - - 103

BY PROF. CHARLES E. BESSEY

NOTE AND COMMENT 104

SCHOOL BOTANY 120

EDITORIAL - - 124

BOOKS AND WRITERS - - - - - 125

20 CENTS A COPY — 73 CENTS A YEAR

WILLARD N. CLUTE & COMPANY

JOLIET. ILLINOIS

JShe Am.erica.rv Botanist

Devoted to Ecological and Economic Botany
PUBLISHED QUARTERLY

WILLARD N. CLUTE 5 5 5 EDITOR.

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AGRICULTURE

We should like to send to every reader of ^The American Botanist who is
interested in Agriculture, either as a teacher or as a practical farmer, a prospectus
of our three volumes work on AGRICULTURE by Prof. William P. Brooks of the
Massachusetts Agricultural College. These books, devoted to Soils and How To
Treat Them; Manures, Fertilizers and Farm Crops; and Animal Husbandry, are con-
ceded to be the best books of the kind on the market at the present time. They
have stood the tests of theorists and practical men as well and are now^ used in
many of the big schools and colleges w^here the teaching of Agriculture is made
a specialty.

We should also like to send a copy of our big two hundred and fifty page
catalogue that tells all about the work we are doing in our correspondence school.
We offer over one hundred home study courses under the personal instruction
and guidance of the very best teachers, leading professors in Harvard, Brown,
Cornell and other well known colleges.

The Prospectus and Catalogue are published for
free distribution. Write today.

The Home Correspondence School

Department 560, Springfield, Mass.

o
<

The American Botanist

VOL. XVII JOLIET. ILL., NOVEMBER. 1911 No. 4

Summer on winter, day or night,

f^he ufoocts are ever a neiv clelignt;

*Jhei/ give us peace and they make us strong,
Svch wonderful balm, to them belong.

oo living or dying, U' II take mine ease.
Lender the trees, LCnder the trees.

— R. H. Stoddard.

THE SMOOTH OR MEADOW PHLOX.

By Willard N. Clute.

THE Phlox genus is a typical g-enus of the North Temperate
Zone, but the American species are by no means evenly
distributed nor do they all have the same general habitat. In
the west there are several species that keep pretty close to the
Rocky Mountain region, and in the east are others that are
found only in the more elevated parts, while in the territory
between are still others that come to their best development in
the lowlands and on the prairies and become infrequent as the
foot-hills on either border are reached.

The phloxes are practically absent from New York and New
England but Florida possesses half a dozen or more species.
In fact the region about the Gulf seems to be the center from
which the various prairie species have spread northward. The
migrations of the phloxes, however, do not appear to have been
everywhere alike. The species that delight in warmth and
sunlight have found the mountains north of the Gulf States to
be a rather trying barrier between them and the prairies of
Illinois and Indiana, but they have managed to go around
them on the west by means of the Mississippi valley, while

98 THE AxAlERlCAN BOTANIST.

Others have crept up along the Atlantic coast as far as Virginia.
One of the handsomest of the prairie species of the Middle
West is the subject of our illustration, the smooth or meadow
phlox {Phlox glaberrima). The species extends into Wis-
consin in suitable locations and is everywhere one of our show-
iest wildflowers. This showiness is due quite as much to its
profuse blooming as it is to its form and color. Unlike
many another choice wilding it does not have to be sought in
secluded glens, deep forests and other out-of-the-way places
but spreads away in brilliant masses over meadow and prairie
as far as the eye can reach, the most conspicuous plant in the
landscape. The structure of the plant also contributes con-
siderably to the effective display of its blossoms. The stems
are slender, wand-like and long enough to lift the truss of
flowers well above the grasses amidst which it grows, while
the narrow leaves are, as it were, kept in the background and
do not obscure the beauty of the plant by leafiness. As our il-
lustration shows it is exceedingly abundant in favorable places.
During its season of bloom few plants can surpass it.

NOVEMBER WAIFS.

IBy Dr. W. W. Bailey.

THE latest plant to bloom in our region, is the witch-hazel,
( Hamamelis) .Isis-ny weeds, not native, linger longer — even
at times into December. They cannot legitimately be said to
dispute the claim of witch-hazel ; they know no better. It
seems queer that the experience of some two centuries has not
convinced them of the dangers and caprices of our climate. We
might, indeed, inquire if, in that long time, they have not be-
come acclimated, or acquired special mean to resist adverse con-
ditions. Nothing can be more interesting than the study of en-
vironment. It is, as every one now knows, a potent factor in
evolution.

But to return to Hainainclis. Its odd yellow flowers may still

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 99

be found clinging to the nearly leafless boughs, the woody cap-
sules do not mature till another year. They are natural ma-
chine guns, or may be, pistols, expelling their hard, shiny seeds
as a fusillade of small shot. They go off with a loud report
and are propelled to a distance of twenty or thirty feet, greatly
surprising the collector, who, not knowing their war-like habit,
takes them home.

Besides its medical use, wherein we may question it the
solvent has not the greater efficacy, it has, from early years,
been employed as a divining-rod to indicate hidden treasure and
springs of water. The latter is found, we suspect, oftener than
the former. Unless fate is especially malicious, the writer
should now be a modern Monte-Cristo, for he has systemati-
cally (though without saving faith!), applied the usual tests to
the twigs. The little grain of mustard-seed, some-how, finds
poor accommodation in his cerebrum, but no doubt "the princi-
pie holds good."

Occasionally we notice a few plants of the autumn crocus
{Colchicum autumnale) in gardens. It is unlike the spring
crocuses of the lily family. It bears the English name of
"Meadow-saffron," and has long been used for its potent medi-
cinal properties in gouty and rheumatic difficulties. Lindley
says. "It has no claim to be considered infallible," a saving
clause. The writer is still looking for the medicine that will
fill that bill for rheumatism !

Very handsome late bloomers are the Japanese anemones,
growing two or three feet high, and bearing pink or white
blossoms two to three inches in diameter.

Of course cosmos should not be forgotten, nor certain hardy
chrysanthemums. iBoth belong to that vigorous, aggressive
race, the Compositae. Two species of Cosmos are seen in cul-
tivation and both are grown in Mexico. In favorable seasons
they grow to an astonishing height, and bloom very late, their
white or rose-colored heads suggesting even when quite near.

100 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST.

the flowers of Sabbatia. They are, however, in no way re-
lated.

These fine plants are apt to delay their blooming too long and
get caught by frost. In other years they run entirely to foliage
— so they cannot be considered wholly satisfactory. However,
like the horrid little girl, they are becoming better. One can-
not now forecast their probable place in floriculture.

Providence, R. I.

ASTERS.

By B. O. Wolden.

THERE is a peculiar charm about the last flowers of the
season. When we go for a walk on a September day we
know that not many days are left us to see and admire. When
we think of autumn flowers we have in mind, probably more
than any others, the wild asters which are so plentiful at this
season. During the last days of September and first part of
October, our woodlands and prairie roadsides, when left un-
disturbed, are clothed in blue, violet and purple by these
flowers. Occasionally we see a hillside which seems snow-
clad, when the white dense flowered aster is at its best.

We welcome and love the flowers of spring but with them
are associated the thought that they are only the beginning,
there will be more flowers coming. But when the asters come
we take notice. The season of flowers will soon be over and we
bid them welcome almost with a sigh.

But because they are the last we love them the best. When
the leaves turn to red and gold and are scattered over the
ground, when the autumn rains fall and the wind blows cold,
the asters bloom in all their glory, fresh and fair. It seems to
us that the following lines from Biyant's "To the Fringed
Gentian" might be used in speaking of the aster also.

THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 101

"Thou comest not when violets lean
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen,
Or columbines in purple dressed,
Nod o'er the ground bird's hidden nest.
Thou waitest late and comest alone
When woods are bare and birds are flown,
And frosts and shortening days portend,
The aged years is near his end."
It may be that the aster does not wait till all the other
flowers are gone before it makes its appearance, but it stays
later than the other autumn flowers, and at least the smooth
aster of the prairies and the wood aster lingers long after the
golden rods and the sunflowers have said farewell.

If we go for a walk in the vicinity of the writers home we
may get acquainted with many beautiful species. In the woods
we find the blue wood aster (A. cordifoliiis) which, though it
may not be as showy as some, is very pretty. But the kind
that will probably first catch our attention is the New England
aster {A. novae angliae) which, while being abundant on the
prairies is also found along borders of woods and woodea road-
sides. This, our largest flowered, is also considered by some,
our handsomest species. Whatever difference of opinion
there may be in regard to this, in speaking of the common form
with violet-purple flowers, it is hard to deny this distinction to
the form with rose-colored heads (var. roseus) which how-
ever is of rare occurrence at least in this vicinity. Another
species that we may find in low open woods and thickets is the
purple stem aster (A. piiniceus) with rather large, pale lilac-
blue or almost white flowers. Before we leave the woods we
must also look for the starved a^ter {A. lateriftonis). This
has rather small white or bluish heads. In low ground we
find the panicled aster {A. paniculatus) with white flowers and
leaves resmbling those of the black willow. A rarer and hand-
somer species is the amethyst aster {A. amethystinns) with
blue heads also found in rather low ground.

102 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST.

A very conspicuous plant is the previously mentioned dense-
flowered aster (A. multHlorns) which is usually abundant on
high prairies. The heads are small but very numerous and
crowded on the branches. A most beautiful species is the
silky aster {A. sericeus) easily disting-uished by its silvery silky
leaves. The flower-heads are described as purple-violet. This
is found on high prairies as is also the aromatic aster (A. ob-
longifohis) another handsome species with purple heads.

Although I have left it for the last I think that long before
this our attention has