96 THE AM'ERrCAN BOTANTST. 



tips of the branches, these irregular "clusters" containing: 

 sometimes a dozen or more fruits; but the grape-fruit 

 cluster is not a thj'-rse, botanically speaking, like that of 

 the grape or lilac — as we hope the subscriber has noticed.. 

 To illustrate how one alwaj^s misses some point of even, 

 his "pet" subject ; In Trinidad I found an experienced 

 cocoa planter who didn't know that he had white-seeded: 

 varieties of cocoa growing along with his common red 

 ones! And this, notwithstanding the fact that one of the- 

 tests applied to the "beans" during fermentation is break- 

 ing them open. And another very similar case in Vene- 

 zuela has just come to notice. Hyperopic perspicacity : 

 things get so near we can't see them, — O. W. Barrett,. 

 Mayagnez, P. R. 



AcTiNELLA AcAULis,— In the sixth Edition of Gray's- 

 Manual a pretty little spring-flowering composite is des- 

 cribed under the name of ActineUa acauliSy Nutt. Since 

 then it has been transferred to the genus Picradenia by 

 Britton and to Tetraneuris by Greene. Possibly a few- 

 other changes have been made to suit the whims of species 

 makers, that we may have overlooked. The principal 

 thing we wish to mention in this connection is the variety 

 glabra which is reported "from an Indian mound near 

 Joliet, 111," Unless this glabrous variety is to be found 

 elsewhere it is now extinct. It no longer grows on the 

 mound near Joliet, in fact, the mound itself is nearly ex- 

 tinct having gone down the throat of the omnivorous 

 stone-crusher to form road material for northeastern 

 Illinois. The mound is not strictly an Indian mound 

 though it once was a meeting place of the tril)es. It is a 

 glacial kame of rounded limestone pebbles, etc. ActineUa 

 acaulis is still plentiful in the vicinity of the mound and 

 each May produces an abundance of yellow daisy-like 

 flowers somewhat larger than dandelion heads, and of a 

 deeper shade of yellow. At a little distance the plant is 

 easily mistaken for a dandelion. 



