128 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



certain that it will penetrate to all parts of the United States 

 where corn is grown. Each female lays more than 300 eggs 

 and in the warmer regions the insect is double brooded, so 

 that there is sure to be enough of the insects to go around. 

 There is no known means of checking its spread, though 

 cleaning up the refuse in the field in which it spends the win- 

 ter mav be depended on to retard it somewhat. In anticipa- 

 tion lit the appearance of the insect in IlliTiois, the State is 

 breeding a parasite from Eur{)})e that feeds on the borer. We 

 have a native borer living in the wild smartweeds that, cjuite 

 against its will is acting as host to the parasite until the 

 dreaded i)est arrives. It is interesting to note that the insect 

 is supposed to have reached America in a shipment of broom 

 corn imported from Italy or Hungary. Thus easily do the 

 noxious insects elude the Federal Horticultural Board while 

 its attention is riveted upon rules for hampering the impor- 

 tataion of flowering plants from other parts of the world. 



Grass Nut. — Texas has many beautiful wild flowers, 

 l)ut none more lovely than those of Calydorca Tcxana. The 

 common or local name for this flower is grass nut, its bulb 

 being solid and edible, having a flavor similar to that of a 

 raw sweet potato. I shudder to think how many of these 

 rare l)lossoms I destroyed when a child by eating the bulbs. 

 The plant has slender, deeply grooved, grass-like foliage and_ 

 grows six to eight inches in height. The flower measures 

 abf)ut two inches in diameter, is six-petalled, spreading, and 

 a jjure. glistening, sky-blue in color. Each flower lasts but 

 a dav but each bulb produces several blooms. The stigma 

 is nlinutelv three-cleft and the filaments smooth. Its favor- 

 ite >oil appears to be a grassy, sunny and rocky one. It is 

 f(tund most frequnetly in the cinders and gumbo of the rail- 

 road l)eds, where its delicate, silken flowers seem most out 

 of place. A year ago I dug some of the bulbs to plant in my 



