THE PLANT WOKLD 51 



the honey poisonous. The only case in wliich this could occur, would 

 be when the "bee-bread" is mixed with the honey that is eaten. As 

 very little honey is used or offered for sale that contains any "bee- 

 bread," this point is insignificant even if the spores are poisonous. 



The habit is a unique one, the nearest approach to it that is re- 

 corded is the gathering of the " honey-dew " from the young heads of 

 rye, etc., that are affected with the ergot disease [Claviceps purpurea), 

 thereby disseminating the spores over wide areas. 



School of Botany, University of Texas. 



FOSSIL HICKORY NUTS. 

 By F. H. Knowlton. 



RECENTLY Mr. J. B. Hatcher of the Carnegie Museum, Pittsburg, 

 sent me for examination over forty specimens of the most per- 

 fectly preserved fossil nuts that I have ever seen. They were 

 obtained by him during the past summer from beds in the so-called 

 Bad Lands of Sioux county, Nebraska, where they were found associ- 

 ated with the bones of some of the strange monsters that have been 

 brought to light from that part of the country. It needs but a glance 

 to determine that they represent the replacement, in silica and lime, of 

 the cotyledons or " meats " of a species of hickory. In a few cases the 

 two cotyledons are still joined together, as in a philopena, but a major- 

 ity of the specimens are single cotyledons. Every ridge and irregular- 

 ity has been faithfully reproduced in stone, and even the color is so 

 similar to that in fresh specimens of our li\dng species, that it requires 

 a second glance to separate them when placed together. In size, shape 

 and general appearance, they seem to resemble most closely the "meats" 

 of the common shell-bark hickory {Hicoria ovata (Mill.) Britton, or 

 Carya alba Nutt.). They have the same broad, thick form, but appear to 

 differ slightly in having a smoother surface — that is, with a less num- 

 ber of ridges or convolutions. The smaller examples are 11 mm. broad, 

 and 4 mm. thick, and the larger about 20 mm. broad, and 7 mm. thick, but 

 there is every step between these extremes, and as there are no appar- 

 ent differences in the markings, it appears more than probable that 

 they all belong to a single species. 



These cotjdedons are apparently so closely similar to the cotyle- 

 dons of living hickories that I should not hesitate to place them in the 

 genus Hicoria, but for the fact that a different name has already been 

 given ^them. In 1898 Prof. E. H. Barbour, of the L^niversity of Ne- 



