THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 167 



adx amrd imuli t'urllii'i' tlian |)Ianl> for llicv have ac(|uirc'cl 

 llir power of corrclatinn and here is the ehief feature whicli 

 designates the higher animals from the higher i)hints. Thus 

 out of one and the same origin, plants have developed irrita- 

 hility, which i> tlie response to stimuli, while animals have re- 

 flex actions, consciousness and ultimale reason, which is mind. 



PouuEx Pecui.iariTiks . — In the course of an article on 

 "Pollen Enzymes" in the American Journal of Botany, Julia 

 P)avles Paton mentions various interesting things about pol- 

 len grains thai mav not be known to the general public. A 

 niedinm-si/ed plant of maize is reported to produce about fifty 

 million pollen grains and cat-tails {7\'/->ha latifolia and T. an- 

 (jiisti folia), which often have sixty thousand flowers in a 

 single spike, produce enormous (juantities. Another member 

 of the cat-tail family, the elephant grass (T. elcphantina), of 

 the k'.ast Indies and New Zealand yields so much pollen that 

 tlie natives use it for making bread and cake. A gram of rag- 

 weed jxillen lias been estimated to contain one hundred and 

 seventv-two million grains. Pollen grains are said to be very 

 resistent to heat, cold and dryness and certain kinds have been 

 known to retain their vitality for many years. Pollen of the 

 date palm was found l)y Popenoe to be usable after seven 

 \'ears. In color, pollen varies from white to yellow or dark 

 red. In Lylhriini salicaria there are two sets of stamens each 

 with its own color of pollen. 



