THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 31 



r. )Uiuls tlic seeds is said l(» l)c tleleterious, hut this is denied 

 hy Tur[iiii who asserts that dugs and children in CaroHna eat 

 the seeds with ini[)nnity." Gray in "I'^ieKl, Forest and (war- 

 den lj(;tany" says the horse clie>tnut is inedihlc and even poi- 

 sonous. As to the China-herry, neither 1 nor any of my coni- 

 ])anions years ago in Carolina ate them, nor have I ever noticed 

 hirds eating them, much less dogs. Can you verify these 

 statements of IJndiey's? His most extraordinary infcjrma- 

 (iou. however is ahout certain of the Solanaceae. "It must 

 also he remembered that if the fruit of the egg-plant (Sola- 

 iiiiiii csculcntuiu) is eatable it only becomes so after undergo- 

 ing a particular process and that the tomato is always exposed 

 to heat before it is eateti." Th^ common potato in a state of 

 putri faction is said to give out a most vivid light, sufficient to 

 read by. This was particularly remarked by an officer on 

 guard at Strasburg who thought the barracks were on fire 

 in consequence of the light thus emitted from a cellarful of 

 potatoes." It was firewater that lit him up, I fancy, rather 

 than rotten potatoes. — Robert A Benton. 



Trknd of Development. — Why there should be l)ut two 

 lines of evolutionary development is not clear. Why not 

 otlier lines, neither i)lant nor animal? Why is it, that the 

 [)lant-animal did not ev(jlve into more highly developed or- 

 ganisms, such as motile trees, etc. There does not seem to 

 be any obvious reason why a higher animal could not have 

 developed, witli chloropliyll brxlies in its skin. The obvious 

 fact is. diat up to the present day, at least, the plant animal has 

 not proven to be one of nature's most sucessful experiments. 

 Perhaps, with changing earth conditions, the time may come 

 when true plants and animals will prove too specialized for 

 the new environment, and a new phase of evolution will find 

 the plant animal type dominating the earth. — Ttirtox Neivs. 



