4 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



ar\'. Some are as near black as flowers can be. The rich- 

 est purples are common, with clear yellow, intense violets, 

 lavenders, tender dove-colors, rich maroons and browns. 

 On the lower petal which in the violets is hollowed behind 

 into a nectar-bearing spur, the}- can be usualW seen, when 

 the ground tint is not too dark to obscure them, the so- 

 called "guiding lines" to which old Sprengel first called at- 

 tention. He claimed for them a significance which science 

 has of late re-affirmed, maintaining that they serve as so 

 many clues or lines of direction to assist insects in finding 

 the nectar. 



Providence, R. I. 



THE CASTOR OIL PLANT. 



BY M. F. BRADSHAW. 



WHEN I lived at the North Pole — which I can easily 

 point out to explorers should any really care to 

 find it — I had a hobby for gardening, and had a very fine 

 garden during the short summer time, for you know there 

 are man^^ plants that adapt themselves to great extremes 

 of climate and to verv' shurt seasons of work. I grew^ 

 everj'thing that would grow there, and tried vast num- 

 bers of plants that would not. Now one of my strongest 

 desires was for a su1)-tropical comer, and my experiences 

 in that line would fill a book — a pathetic, not an amusing 

 book to me. 



Among the things I tried was Ricinus communis and 

 my success was not at all bad. The seeds always came 

 up and some seasons the plants grew a foot or two high, 

 and one never-to-be-forgotten summer they got away 

 above my head. I was a proud gardener then. Now I 

 live in the sub-tropics where almost anything can be culti- 

 vated. I still admire my old love the Ricinus though I do 

 not cultivate him any more as he seems better adapted to 

 roadsides and creeksides than a garden ; besides his size 

 would unfit him for refined plant society. 



Botanists give only one species, but I must say then it 

 has two very different suits of clothes. One is green all 



