BOTANY. 313 



fusion on this continent, and have gradually died out, owing to some 

 inexplicable yet perhaps only slight climatic changes ? May not this 

 be the last vestige, or one of the last, of what was once an American 

 heath ? Every few years botanists are startled by the discovery in 

 what were considered well gleaned localities of new or very rare 

 plants, and we are forced to the conclusion that the botany even of 

 New England and the Canadas is not yet wholly known. The botani- 

 cal interest of this discovery is very great, not only from its unexpected- 

 ness, and from the new floral link by which it connects New England 

 with the mother country, but also from its bearing upon mooted ques- 

 tions respecting the geographical distribution or dispersion of species, 

 upon which distinguished naturalists are now at issue. Silliman's 

 Journal, from a report to the Mass. Horticultural Society, by Edward 

 S. Rand, Jr. 



BOTANICAL SUMMARY. 



Substitute for Gutta Perclia. At a late meeting of the French 

 Academy of Sciences, M. Serres gave an account of the batata, a 

 shrub which abounds in Guiana, and affords a juice which he asserted 

 was superior, for many purposes, to gutta percha, but especially as an 

 insulating material for enveloping telegraphic wires. The milk or juice 

 is drinkable, and used by the natives with coffee ; it coagulates quickly 

 when exposed to the air, and almost instantaneously when precipitated 

 by alcohol, which also dissolves the resin of the balata juice. All the 

 articles made with gutta percha can be made with the sap of the balata, 

 and it has no disagreeable smell. When worked up it becomes as sup- 

 ple as cloth, and more flexible than gutta percha. M. Serres exhibited 

 a number of articles manufactured of balata milk. Up to the pres- 

 ent time it seems from M. Serres's account not to have become an 

 article of commercial export. 



New Canadian Dye. Professor Lawson recently exhibited before 

 the Botanical Society of Canada some specimens of a new dye of great 

 richness, prepared in the laboratory of Queen's College, Kingston, from 

 an insect, a species of coccus, found for the first time last summer on 

 a tree of common black spruce in the neighborhood of Kingston. This 

 dye closely resembles the expensive cochineal (produced in warm 

 countries only), which is used for dyeing wool and silk a permanent 

 red, crimson, or scarlet. Unlike cochineal, the new dye is a native 

 Canadian product, and capable of being produced in temperate coun- 

 tries. Having been but recently discovered, a sufficient quantity has 

 riot been obtained for a complete series of experiments as to its nature 

 and uses ; but the habits of the insect, as well as the properties of the 

 dye, seem to indicate that it may become of practical importance. In 

 color it closely resembles ordinary cochineal, having rather more of the 

 scarlet hue of the flowers of Adonis autumnalis, and no doubt other 

 shades will be obtained. 



The yearly Production of Nicotine in Tobacco. It is stated that 

 the tobacco crop of the world is 250,000,000 kilogrammes (=5,512,500 

 Ibs. av.). Schlosiiig found in various tobaccos an average of about 

 five per cent, of nicotine. It is clear, therefore, that about twelve and 

 a half million of kilogrammes (=2,756,250 Ibs.) of this poison are 

 annually produced. As the specific gravity of nicotine very slightly 

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