100 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 
The red sunflowers in the Garden will be found in large 
numbers along the east side of the stone wall which remains 
standing south of the new plant range. It will at once be 
apparent to the visitor that not all of the flowers are marked 
with red; a large number, however, will be seen to have a rich 
chestnut-red zone in the ray flowers, it being most striking 
in the flowers that are just opening, becoming less marked 
with age and disappearing almost entirely before the flowers 
have finished blooming. A few of the all-red type will also 
be found, but most of the flowers are of the bicolor type. 
It should be said in conclusion that Prof. Cockerell con- 
siders the present red sunflower only a step in the develop- 
ment of much more striking red varieties, and it is hoped 
that the Garden may be able to exhibit these as they are | 
produced 
INTERESTING PLANTS FOR JULY. 
On account of the intense heat, the usual floral display in 
the new plant house has been suspended during the months 
of July, August and September. Many interesting and beau- 
tiful flowering and foliage plants are to be seen, however, 
both in the old ranges and out-of-doors. 
In the front house of the old range two plants of the pea 
family are attracting considerable attention. They are the 
sensitive plant (Mimosa pudica) and the telegraph plant 
(Desmodium gyrans). Both of these plants have the 
peculiar faculty of quickly responding, with their leaves, to 
external shocks. The sensitive plant has a leaf divided into 
three parts and each part is clothed with two rows of small 
leaflets. When the leaf is touched or the plant is jarred, 
these small leaflets quickly fold together and the plant takes 
on the so-called sleeping attitude. If the shock has been 
sufficiently violent the leaflets not only fold together, but the 
entire leaf bends down at the point where it joins the stem. 
After soites Fagen to a stimulus ~ this s wesagge 2 ce 
very gradually returns to its original position. en the 
lea? has been stimulated repeatedly at short intervals, it 
finally fails to react. The telegraph plant has, near the base 
of the terminal leaflet, two salt ones on opposite sides of 
the petiole. Without any apparent outside stimulus these 
leaflets move up and down, so that the two, at different 
times, occupy positions at all angles to each other and re- 
_ mind one at once of the arms of a semaphore. 
