vain attempt to find in them his accustomed nourishment. This 
eurious fact seems to indicate that the attraction in such cases is 
not due to the odor of the flowers, but simply to their bright color ; 
and that the Greek story is not so imprabable after all. C.D. M. 
16, Acta, L.—I have been interested this summer in the exami-’ 
nation of the Actzea—both red and white—of which I saw hundreds 
of fine plants. It is impossible to mistake the one species for the 
other, without regard to color of berries. 
The red berries (A. spicata) have very delicate, long, green pedi- 
cels, }/. The berries are a half larger than the white, and the stalks 
are hollow, and easily crushed with the thumb and finger. 
_The long pedicels give to the head much of the ovoid shape men- 
tioned in the books as opposed to the oblong heads of the white. 
A. alba has berries small, }/, and generally white, though I found 
Several red, but it was as easy to distinguish them from A. spicata 
as if they had been white. The pedicels are 4/ long, and very thick 
and red, and, in contrast with the white berries, produce a 
Very pretty effect. The stalks are solid, occasionally having a fine 
thread-like hollow at the centre, but are never easily crushed with 
the fingers. This distinction is very remarkable. I probably ex- 
amined more than 100 stalks, and brought some with me showing 
this difference. I found it everywhere the same. 
The small red berries on thick, short, red pedicels were as clearly 
the A. alba as the white ones ; they had every characteristic but 
color, and that of a very different shade from the A. spicata. : 
_ This cireumstance has made me doubt the observations on which 
18 made the statement, “white berries sometimes occur on slender 
Pedicels, and vice versa,” for in my case, though “ vice versa,” they 
Were not A. spicata in any sense. The white is generally of a more 
Slender habit than the red, and taller, but I should find it difficult, 
if not impossible, to distinguish them except in fruit, and then it is 
impossible to confound them, and I make no doubt as to their being 
Stinct and well-defined species. J. S. Merriam. 
77. White Partridge Berries We found last week a good many white 
partridge-berries (Mitchella repens). We have never noticed them 
before, and would like to know whether they are common ; if so, we 
are not close observers. They were growing with the red berries, 
but not on the same vines. ‘They were larger than most of the red 
ones. We thought at first that they were unripe berries, but they 
cannot be, for there were quantities of green ones which did not look 
at all like these. We find no mention of them in Gray’s Botanies. 
Canaan, Cr., Sept. 11th. eure 
78, Aspidiu elypteris, Swartz.—Mrs. L. A. Millington finc 
fern ios phi Waaeths in drying. She writes :—‘“I think we 
Shall have to call it a variety, as not all that I have examined have 
Proved to be fragrant. The fertile fronds are somewhat eds 
as 
and the whole plant softer and lighter colored. I find that it has. 
been known aii country people as Beaver-~meadow fern. Marshy 
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