72 THE PLANT WOELD. 



toe and methods of destroviiiii' it. Au(,>tliei' will deal with the 

 now becoming- destmctive Tilhmdsia recurrala. A later series 

 Avili present certain types of Howers from the hx'al flora, de- 

 signed to illnstrate the conrse on Evolution and Adaptation as 

 Exliihited in Floral Stj'uctures^ which is now an elective spring 

 term course at the Universitv. It will l)e recalled that Texas, 

 west of the 97th meridian, lies in the zone of extravagant floral 

 display. In few regions may one find superior facilities for the 

 study of "floTal ecology," and accordingly this phase of the 

 subject is to be specially cultivated henceforth. 



One of the interesting ju-dductions of the Samoan Islanders 

 is a cloth made of bark and called ''tapa." In the manufacture 

 of this cloth, single strips of bark from a species of mulberry 

 arc [)repared by scraping and soaking in water, aftei' wliich they 

 are beaten out very thin by means of small wooden clubs. These 

 tliiii sheets, while still wet, are laid one (jver another and the 

 whole beaten toiicther to form a lar<>e sheet of uniform thickness. 

 Such bark cloth is in some respects a kind of })a])er, bnt it is ser- 

 viceable as cloth since it is not easily damaged by M-atcr. Tlie 

 finisheil cloth is often ornamented l)v ])rinting, or rather rubbing. 

 For this ])urpose designs in relief are carved on wood or bnilt 

 up of palm-leaf cuttings, u])on wliich tbe cloth is laid and ru])bed 

 Avith sticks of coloring matter, like crayon. This leaves an im- 

 pression of the raised portion of the carving similar to that ]U'o- 

 duced wdien a school-boy rubs the impression of a coin into the 

 fiv-leaf of his book. — Science. 



Mr. Henry DiMitun wislics to purchase or exchange for 

 European material, herbarium specimens of Fediculans and 

 allied genera, Labiatae. Ericaceae, Primulaceae , Banunculaceae , 

 Cyperaceac and Filices. Address 139 Franklin St., Jersey 

 City, IsT. J. 



