L22 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



noticed thai rain and wind had so exposed its roots that its 

 h Id on life was precarious. Taking pity on its plight, the 

 kindhearted men brought earth in their tin dinner bucket, 

 covered the roots and built about them a support of stones. In 

 time the story of how the tree owed its life to the sons of John 

 Brown of Ossawatomie gained for it the local name of the 

 "Ossawatomie pine tree". 



It is still a thrifty specimen, but of the thousands of annual 

 visitors to Mt. Lowe, few know of the thread that binds this 

 sturdy little pine with one of the stirring epochs of our nation's 

 history; for Owen Brown was the companion and able lieu- 

 tenant of his father in the latter's picturesque carrer both in 

 Kansas and at Harper's Ferry. Owen died in 1889 in his cabin 

 a few miles from this pine tree; and his solitary grave, marked 

 with a rude granite head stone, crowns the summit of one of 

 the Sierra foothills close to his old mountain home. 



HOW PLANT FOOD IS FORMED 



By Willard N. Clutk. 



HPHERE is probably no phase of botany about which so 

 ■*- many misconceptions exist in the popular mind as the 

 formation of plant food, and the gardener, nurseryman and 

 plant lover share in the general obfuscation. Nearly every- 

 body sruns to think that plants get their food from the soil, 

 entirely overlooking the fact that a large number of plants, 

 such as perching plants or epiphytes, thrive though not rooted 

 in the soil. As a matter of fact plants get their food from 

 their leaves — at least that is where it is made. 



Plants differ from animals in that they form food from 

 simple chemical elements, while animals are unable to do this 

 and can only take the foods formed by plants and break them 

 down into their original elements again. When it comes to the 



