tHE AMERlCAX BOTANIST. 79 



and late autumn. The blue violets are conspicuous ex- 

 .amples, beginning to bloom in the cool days of early 

 spring and ceasing when the weather becomes warm only 

 to begin blooming again as soon as cool autumn days 

 arrive. In long, moderately cool autumns, like the psat 

 one, nearly all the blue violets began blooming again. Just 

 liow color is affected by temperature does not seem to be 

 known at present. Plwsiological botanists are hereby ap- 

 prised that this affords a promising field for investigation. 



The Genus Lonicera, — More the one hundred and 

 iift}' species of honeysuckle (Lonicera) are now known. 

 All are found in the Northern hemisphere, the limits of 

 their southern range crossing Northern Africa and Mexico. 

 The color of the flowers varies from w^hite to yellow^, pur- 

 ple and scarlet and the berries may be red, yellow, black, 

 bluish or v^hite. While North America has a fair number 

 of species, northern Asia has more than all the rest of the 

 world put together. In an elaborate revision of this genus 

 Just published in the Fourteenth Annual Report of the 

 Missouri Botanical Garden, Mr. Alfred Rehder divides the 

 .genus into tw^o sub-genera, Chamsecerasus characterized 

 b}- flow^ers in two-flowered axillary peduncled cymes and 

 separate leaves, and Periclymenum with flowers in three- 

 floviTcred sessile cymes and the upper leaves connate. The 

 £rst is much the larger and the writer asserts that it can- 

 not properly be divided according to the shape of the co- 

 rolla though most botanists follo-w this arrangement. 

 Such characters, he says, can scarcely be used to distin- 

 .guish sub-sections as it would separate closeh^ related spe- 

 ■cies. The two-lipped corolla is now^ regai'ded as having 

 arisen late in the history of the genus being a modification 

 due to certain insect visitors. He therefore divides the 

 sub-genus into two sections, one characterized by regular 

 flowers with five nectaries and the other by irregular flow- 

 ers and one to three nectaries. This latter group is again 

 divided, the principal character being taken from the 

 branches wdiich in some species are hollow^ and in others 

 filled wdth pith. 



