126 THF PLANT WORLD. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The Caraway plant [Carum Carid^ L.) famous for its aromatic 

 seeds, which go iqto countless cookies every year, is an immigrant into 

 this country from Europe, and is a w^ell known wayside wxed in many 

 parts of New York and Northern Pennsylvania. 



The collection of water lilies and other blooming aquatics in the 

 White House conservatories is probably liner than any similar collec- 

 tion in this country. There are over fifty varieties of Castalia, Nym- 

 phaea and Nelumho^ including both night and day flowering sorts. 

 The range of color in these plants is remarkable, embracing almost 

 every shade of red, blue and yellow. 



The well known little Ageratum conyzoidtH^ now so prized in cul- 

 tivation, is one of the commonest plants in the lower ranges of the 

 Himalayas where ''it is rapidly overrunning the hill sides, springing 

 up everywhere and- fast displacing the native weeds on all the fresh 

 landslips and clearings: even the hardy worm -wood is disappearing 

 before it.'' Waddell in Among the IIimaJayai<. 



Congress has provided for the establishment of agricultural ex- 

 periment stations in both Hawaii and Porto Rico, and special agents 

 have already been selected to conduct the necessary preliminary in- 

 vestigations. These will be directed especially toward ascertaining 

 what plants may be most profitably cultivated, how general agricul- 

 tural information may be disseminated, and what are the best methods 

 of securing: irrij^ation. 



,; A disease of peaches almost as destructive as the widely known 

 peach yellows has been studied by Newton B. Pierce, of the Pacific 

 Coast Laboratory at Santa Ana, California, and is to form the topic 

 of Bulletin No. 20 of the Department of Agriculture. It is the so- 

 called "peach leaf curl,'" and while extremely fatal to the trees, it 

 may be prevented with comparative ease and certainty, according to 

 Mr. Pierce's conclusions. 



