56 The Ottawa Naturalist [June 



Club owing to various causes which could not be avoided. He 

 also drew attention to the advantages of the meetings which 

 provided not only interesting reunions but also could with a 

 little effort be of great assistance to the Editor of The Ottawa 

 Naturalist if the members would prepare short notes on botani- 

 cal subjects to be read at the meetings and then published in 

 the monthly magazine. 



The chairman spoke of the Tarry Cockle, Silene antirrhina 

 as a Farm weed in the West and also read some very interesting 

 extracts from letters by Mr. W. Collingridge Bing of Castlegar, 

 B.C., describing annoyance and losses in his poultry runs from the 

 young chicks being caught and held fast prisoners by the 

 tarry patches on the stems sticking to their down. Even a 

 five weeks old chick is powerless to free itself if caught over the 

 back. The weed is very abundant in his chicken run of 7 

 acres. Mr. James Macoun had seen the weed occurring in remark- 

 able abundance in some parts of British Columbia. 



Other remarkable weeds mentioned by the chairman were 

 Draba nemorosa, Draha Caroliniana and Corydalis aurea all of 

 which occurred on stubble field in Manitoba. 



Mr. G. H. Clarke spoke of the abundance of the seeds of 

 dodder in samples of alfalfa and other kinds of clover seed 

 now being offered for sale. ' Owing to a shortage in the Cana- 

 dian crop of 1906, a great deal of clover seed was being impor- 

 ted. From past experience, the speaker did not anticipate that 

 there would be much trouble from dodder in Canadian fields 

 although some species might persist for a time. Mr. Clarke 

 also exhibited a full set of the beautiful plates by Norman 

 Criddle for the illustrated bulletin on Farm Weeds of Canada 

 which he hoped would soon be issued. 



Prof. Macoun gave an excellent address on the value of 

 critical study in botan}^ instancing the remarkable number of 

 new species of flowering plants detected by Prof. Fernald in 

 a few weeks collecting in Lower Canada. The speaker urged 

 the members to collect and study carefully all the local 

 plants of the district. Many of the old species under critical 

 study in all their parts had been found to cover several distinct 

 species. Dr. H.M. Ami read an account ofthe Sugar Maple and the 

 manufacture of Maple sugar from an old work published early 

 in the last century. This article brought out a most interesting 

 discussion on the general subject. 



Dr. Ami also protested vigorously against private corpor- 

 ations as telegraph and telephone companies being allowed to 

 cut and injure the shade trees which were such an attractive 

 feature of many cities and which belonged to the public. 



Mr. James Macoun reminded those present of an interesting 

 lecture which would be dehvered in Ottawa on May 3 1 by Dr. 

 Pollard on the work ofthe Wild-flower Preservation Society. J. F. 



