Asa Gray

Essay Toward a Revision of Dodecatheon

Probably every botanist who has turned his attention to this genus has suspected it to be of more than one species. But those who have attempted to deal with the numerous now extant forms have been baffled in their endeavors to distinguish and define them. In the Synoptical Flora of North America I could do no better than to arrange the forms loosely tinder seven varieties. If I have now done better in the attempted discrimination of five species the credit is largelv due to indications and specimens supplied to me by two western correspondents, Mr. Suksdorf, of Washington Territory, and Prof. L. F. Henderson, of Oregon, to the latter especially in pointing out to me the anomalous character of the form which I have accordingly designated by his name. If the assigned characters hold ouit it will be in good part by their fruits that we shall know them; and fruit is rare in our specimens, so that many of them can only be guessed at, and the value of the present scheme is still to be tested. But present indications point to five species, the principal characters of which are exhibited in the subjoined

Burs in the Borage Family

BY PROFESSOR ASA GRAY. A BUR in the light of morphological botany may be seen to be a seed, a fruit or a portion of one, a calyx, an involucre, or what not. Under the teleological aspect, which was once thought to be expelled from natural history, but which has come back in full force, a bur is one adaptation for the dissemination of seeds by cattle or other animals. One of the most familiar burs is that of the common houndstongue (Cynoglossum), of the Borage family; and those of one or two species of stickseed (of the nearly related genus Echinospermum) are equally troublesome, clinging as they do to the fleece or hairy coat of domestic animals and to clothing. These burs, morphologically, are not seeds, but quarter portions of seed-like fruits. They adhere for transport by means of prickles or projecting points, which are either barbed or hooked at the tip; the grappling organs in some cases occupying the whole surface of the pericarp, in others particular portions of it. It is rather interesting to notice how in the same family, that is, among plants all constructed on the same particular plan, this same purpose is effected or attempted ill different ways, and, as we may say, more or less successfully. The occasion of these remarks came to me with a new plant of this order in which the bur proved to be formed of different materials from the ordinary burs of the family. It is worth noticing, moreover, that in what botanists must consider one and the same genus, and, so to speak, of one blood, the grappling organs may be either more or less developed, or rudimentary, or even wanting altogether, or when wanting to the seed-like fruits, may be developed on some neighboring pas

New or Rare Plants

Hibiscus incanns Wendl. Doubting the sulphur colored or straw-yellow petals, I referred this species to H. lasiocarpos Cav. in Proc. Am. Acad. xxii, 302. But I find that Dr. Chapman well knows the yellow-flowered plant, and I have now received it fiom Alabama, from F. J. Muller through Prof. Meehan. Chapmans character is a good one, but I have passed some dried specimens for a form of HI. Moscheutos, which it much resembles. I have confirmed H. lasiocarpos Cav. for the hairy-fruited species, by referring to the original in herb. Jussieu at Paris. I here record the rehabilitation of H. incanus, because in these days catalogues are so numerously and promptly published.

Memoranda of a Revision of the North American Violets. I

GROUP II. Acaulescent; the leaves and scapes springing directly from the summit of a rootstock, or later more or less from runners: style with inflexed or truncate and beardless summit and an antrorsely beaked or short pointed small stigma. * Rootstocks thicic and short, multicipital, ascending or little creeping, never filiform nor stoloniferous, often fleshy-dentate: corolla only saccatespurred, blue or violet, occasionally varying to white; at least lateral petals bearded. Species connected by transitions.

Dr. Gray's Letter to the Botanical Club

witlh the narcotic above referred to were still susceptible. The writer made many experiments with the same poison, which were also negative in their results. Law has published experiments with swine plaguie from which he claims positive results, but the number of animals operated upon is too limited to be at all conclusive, even if the details of the experiments were satisfactory, which is not the case. Quite recently in our experiments pigeons have been granted a very complete immunity from the effects of swine plague virus by treating them with cultures of the microbe in which all living organisms had been previously destroyed by heat. Up to this time, however, our experiments with pigs have only given negative results. Although there are still some points in connection with this subject which greatly need experimental elucidation, it is believed that the theory developed in this paper is in accordance with the facts so far demonstrated. The problems of immunity have long been considered impenetrable mvsteries, and if this theory does not prove in all respects correct it is hoped that it may at least be of some service to other investigators.

Who Finds White Partridge-Berries?

WIIO FINDS WHITE PARTRIDGE;-BERRIES?-SO far as we know, or ever hear(d of, only Miss Kate Fislher Kurtz. of York, Penni., whlo sends us freslh plants. The berries are as white as those of Chiogenes, and form a fine contrast with the redI ones. It was founld in a sinigle patclh, in the midst of the ordinary forim. ThII albiiiism affects even the corolla, the tip of which in bud lacks thle purple or rose tinge of the ordinary bud s.-A. GrRAY.

The Two Wayside Plantains

THE Two WAYSIDE PLANTAINS, By ASA GRIAY.-I wish to call the attenition of Botanists to the Coummon Plantains of the country, and to make a public, tlhough tardy expression of thanks to Mr. A. Commons, of Centreville, Delaware. I senld you, helrC with, for insertion, his letter to me, which the date shows to have been long unattenided to. I have in somiie way or other postponed its consideration until now, whell the review of tile genus for the l)art of miy Synoptical Flora of North Amierica, now in )ress, brought the subject directly before me: