193 



spot, when the lawn mower could not work, my men were often 

 bothered by their scythe blades striking the ** knees " of a large 

 Cypress tree. I had the **knees" chopped off level with the 

 ground, and each cut off just as an upward curl in the root a little 

 thickened and pointed above, and in most cases the root was en- 

 tirely severed. These were mere little protuberances, however^ 

 as compared with the great knees seen above the water in 

 Southern swamps. A longitudinal section of one of these pro- 

 jections, showing the course of the sap and woody layers, I think 

 would prove them to be merely convolutions of the roots peculiar 

 to the genus, perhaps intended as braces for the tree in the soft 

 soil in which its roots run so shallow. 



It may be of interest to note that we have found Sedum 

 NevH on top of the Blue Ridge just north of Rockfish Gap, Va. 

 This is two hundred miles northeast of the most northern point 

 given by any^authority at my command. The plant was found 

 among other interesting specimens by Professor Seaman and a 

 party of boys from the Miller School. We note the fact that a 

 great many of the wild blackberries are producing rose-colored 

 flowers this spring. Can it be owing to the cool and wet 



weather ? 



W. F. Massey, 



Stellai'ia ptibera. — ** Stem pubescent in one lateral or two op- 

 posite lines." Not being able to understand from my own view 

 of the morphological significance of the hairy line as developed 

 m Stcllaria media, the common chickweed, how there could 

 possibly be hair m two opposite lines, I obtained fresh plants for 

 study. I do not find the two opposite lines in any specimens 

 before 



me. 



But an interesting fact worth recording, is that the flowers 

 ^fe proterogynous, and that not only are the lower verticils 

 arrested in their final development until the pistils have become 

 perfect, but the second movement in the accelerated growth 

 downward is so nicely regulated, that the inner cycle or verticil 

 of five stamens shed their pollen before the five stamens in the 

 outer ones. I have often noted this nice distinction in the double 

 <^ycles of proterandrous hexandrous monocotyledons, but this is 

 the first instance I can recall in proterogynous flowers. 



Thomas Meehan, 



