20 



in Tuckertown, near Worden's Pond. It adds one more to the pe- 

 culiar southern forms which occur in this interesting district. The 

 plant was given me, correctly named, for confirmation. Again, all 

 credit to the ladies ! 



Pods of Crotalaria expand with a jerk, sending seeds across my 

 table, and then coiling spirally. W. W, Baily. 



Providence, R. I. 



i6. Varying Behavior of Plants.— In the Bulletin for 1878, 



referring to Z/;7wm/^r^;z;z^,' I remarked that the behaviour of plants 

 varied in different parts of the world. An interesting instance of this 

 may be noted in Eggers' " Flora of St. Croix and the Virgin Islands," 

 just issued by the Department of the Interior. In that part of the 

 world, the common Field-mustard, Sinapis arvensis^ has followed the 

 cultivator, and in February produces cleistogamous flowers only, fol- 

 lowed by the regular flowers the rest of the year. The common 

 Water-cress, also introduced there, has never been known to flower 

 at all. As the Field-mustard has been extensively introduced into 

 Western New York, it would be worth while for those who have the 

 opportunity, to watch the behaviour of the early flowers there. 



Thomas Meehan. ^^ 



17, Impatiens fulva, action of bees toward. — During the sum- 

 mer of 1878 I frequently observed the bees at work on flowers of this 

 species, without noticing a single instance of perforation of the 

 corolla — described in the Bulletin for Sept., 1877 — until the latter 

 part of August, although I carefully examined many flowers. Then, 

 one day, as I was watching a busy swarm of humble and hive bees, 

 my attention was attracted to one of the latter, whicTi started to enter 

 a flower, but stopped for some reason, and crept around on the out- 

 side of the corolla, where she hung, head down, for a second, and 

 then went on to another flower, which she entered without any 

 hesitation. Keeping my eye on her, I picked the first flower, and 

 found a perforation on one side of the nectary about 8 mm. from its 

 end. Constantly watching her, I picked several flowers which she 

 had properly entered, and found none of them perforated, but after 

 a time she came to another flower, at which she hesitated, and then 

 treated it in precisely the same manner as the first. This was also 

 found to be perforated. The question now arose whether she per- 

 forated these flowers, or whether some previous visitor had done this; 

 so when she started to crawl back on a third flower, I frightened her 

 away, and, picking the flower, found it already perforated. Watching 

 other bees, I failed to see another act in this manner, and was unable 

 to find other perforated corollas. From her actions, this bee 

 evidently was accustomed to visiting flowers in the legitimate way, 

 until, coming to a perforated corolla, she saw the perforation from 

 the mouth, when she crept back on the outside and sucked the nectar 

 from the cleft, probably being able to secure more in this way than 

 in the other. 



After this I was unable to study this species till about the middle 

 of September, when I found every full opened flower out of 55 which 



were examined to be perforated, some of them in at least three 

 places. , . .1 #fs » t • 



aJcx. ' ^ f -^ ^ gU^i.^^-*--^ 



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