THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 121 



were spread along it in the usual manner that they would be 

 on an upright stem. The evidence seemed to be that it was 

 an t)rdinary aboveground stem rather than an underground 

 stem and yet it might hav.c been that the very wet soil in the 

 \icinily had forced the plant to develop its rhizome out in 

 the air. — Vrank C. Gates. 



Largf; EivDER-bf.rry Fruits. — Among the new plants 

 imported by the Government for distribution to experimenters, 

 are specimens of the common European elder-berry {Sani- 

 hucKs nigra) with fruits three or four times the size of ordin- 

 ary elder-berries and very sweet and juicy. When ri])e they 

 are greenish-golden instead of blue-black. The discoverer of 

 this sport gathered twenty-one pounds of fruit from a speci- 

 men the second time it fruited. It is probable that all of our 

 wild fruits (.ould be improved greatly by selection and cultiva- 

 tion if desired. The common wild cherry (Pniiiiis scrotina) 

 has thus been made into an edii)le form in parts of the tropics. 

 in the case of our native elder-berry (Sa)ubiiciis Canadensis) 

 nol)0(lv seems to have thought it worth experimenting with, 

 but all wavfarers know that the fruit presents a wide degree 

 of variation and therefore offers many points of departure 

 for making improved varieties. All that is needed to produce 

 a commercially valuable fruit is somebody with time and 

 ])atience enough to car^y out the work. 



Vegetable Brooms. — A year or so ago, the writer of this 

 paragraph picked up in one of the clif¥-ruins of our Southwest, 

 a broom made of the stem and leaves of a yucca plant. The 

 specimen had laid there for possibly a thousand years since 

 it dropped from the hands of its Indian owner. The broom 

 is no modern invention, but long before there w^ere manufac- 

 tured brooms, the savages utilized various plants for 

 cleaning up as we now use the manufactured article. Those 



