THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 75 



The Spelling of Persimmon. — In early days writers 

 on botanical subjects exercised great choice in the spelling 

 of words especial})^ if they were words of unusual origin. 

 In their efforts to represent the Indian word for persimmon 

 the old botanists have used all of the folio wing: pushemin, 

 pichamin, pessemniin, putehamin, puchamine, parsemena, 

 parsimena, pissmien, putchimon, pitchumon, phishimon, 

 persimon, possimon, pishamin and parsimmon, 



A New Use for Sumac. — The aborigines in the interior 

 of the island of Formosa are still a pretty wild lot not en- 

 tirely above the suspicion of being head-hunters. Accord- 

 ing to the Japanese Botanical Magazine they formerly 

 obtained their salt bj barter with the more civilized 

 people near the coast, and when they failed to behave 

 properly, the supply was held up until they became more 

 tractable. Lately, however, the natives have become quite 

 indifferent to offers of salt and an investigation shows 

 that they have discovered a way of getting a salty liquid 

 by soaking in water the seeds of a species of sumac {Rhus 

 semialata Roxhurghii). 



The White Marsh Mallow. — Apropos the editorial 

 note accompanying the paragraph on the above subject by 

 Elwyn Waller in the August number of The American 

 Botanist, I would sa3' that the query is answered in the 

 article referred toby himself. "The Rose Mallows" by Dr. 

 Britton \n Journal of the New York Botanical Garden, 

 December, 1903. Dr. Britton therein quotes a letter from 

 Mr. Wm. F. Bassett, who introduced the plant into culti- 

 vation, in which occurs the line "very unexpectedly I found 

 them to come true from seed and we raised and sold a 

 great many thousand of them." They also came true 

 from seed sown by the writer at his old home in western 

 Pennsylvania and I have known them to do likewise for 

 others. To my mind it is not a mere sport but a really 

 good species.^^. A. Shafer, New York Botanical Garden. 

 [The editor has many times seen the species from which 

 Dr. Britton described his new species and has never been 

 quite convinced that the}- are distinct from the common 



