124- 'THE PLANT WORLD. 



It is a well known fact that the sweet-nutted hickories and walnuts 

 have thick shells, and the bitternuts thin shells. One can draw but 

 one inference, that is, that it is an adaptation to provide against 

 squirrels, etc. May it not be that the shagbark of the hickory is to 

 be explained in the same way ? — VV. W. Rowlee. 



Last autumn Mr. Frank E. Fenno found at Apalachin, N. Y., a 

 quantity of a most peculiar form of the Fringed Gentian. Some 

 specimens sent to me are barely three inches high, with four short 

 nodes to the stem, yet each bears a full formed flower, about one- 

 third the normal size, but like the normal flower in all other respects. 

 — WillardN. ChUc, Nciv York City. 



The difference in time of flowering of plants from the south and 

 those from northern Vermont, when transplanted into the nursery, is 

 often very striking. At first thought it might seem, perhaps, to some, 

 that the southern plants would be the first to bloom, but this is not 

 the case. Last year I had beds of Lilium PhiladclpJiiciun from Con- 

 necticut and from Vermont planted side by side the previous autumn, 

 those from the south having been set two or three weeks sooner than 

 the Vermont bulbs, yet the bulbs from Connecticut were about two 

 weeks behind the A^ermonters, and their seed capsules about as late 

 in proportion. It is much the same with Cypripediinu hirstitiim from 

 North Carolina and from Vermont, those from the south being fully 

 two weeks later. But this difference in time of bloom does not con- 

 tinue from year to year. Though they do not come together the 

 second season, the difference is not so marked, and by the third year 

 there is still less or perhaps no perceptible difference." I have grown 

 bulbs of Lilium Canadense from New Jersey which though much later 

 than native \^ermont bulbs the first season, were, after two seasons 

 growth here about as early as any. Some of the Mexican bulbs 

 are rather curious in their modes of growth here. Milla bijiora 

 and some of the Calochorti, like C. flavus and C. bonplandianus 

 are very slow to start here at first, and seldom — especially the 

 Milla — produce seed the first year; but after two or three seasons 

 in our climate they seem to adapt themselves to its con- 

 ditions and start weeks earlier than at first. Bulbs of Milla bifiora 

 will produce good seed here after two years of acclimation. This 

 adaptation to climatic conditions is perhaps more forcibly shown in 

 the Tigridia pavonia and its many varieties than in most Mexican 

 bulbs. Stock which I have imported from Europe which may have 

 had generations of culture in more northern climates started so early 

 as to seem like an entirely different plant from the collected bulbs re- 

 ceived direct from the wilds of Mexico. — F. H. Horsfo7'd, Charlotte, Vt. 



