70 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



Bill. It is a great pity that the general public which has to use 



the plant names does not refuse entirely to countenance this 



monkeying with nomenclature. If the name-tinkers must be 



employed, let them engage in a game of tiddledywinks or take 



up tatting as a pastime. 



* * * 



Professor John M. Coulter, Chairman of the Com- 

 mittee on Botany, National Research Council, has pre- 

 pared a list of suggested investigations by means of 

 which the national welfare may be advanced during these 

 troublous days. Many of these problems can only be 

 taken up by scientists with adequate laboratory facilities, 

 but there is one subject in whose advancement every bot- 

 anist and botanizer can join and that is a survey of the wild 

 products which may be substituted for more expensive 

 crops. During the Civil War, a southern gentleman, Dr. 

 John Porcher, issued a book in which was listed a large 

 number of the wild plants of the South which could be 

 substituted for much needed drug and food plants. A new 

 list of this kind is much to be desired and since this is 

 exactly in line with the objects of the recently organized 

 Corresponding Botanical Club, we suggest for the next 

 report a list of all such plants known to the correspondents. 

 What plants not ordinarily cultivated do you know of that 

 are edible? What root crops? What fruits or seeds? A 

 great deal of information on these points might be readily 

 obtained from hunters, trappers, woodsmen, farmers, In- 

 dians and the foreigners who pick up considerable food 

 from the countryside. This information should be ar- 

 ranged in two groups, one containing such facts as the 

 reporter knows from personal experience to be true, and 

 the other, information which is a matter of hearsay. If 

 this is arranged somewhat after the order of that in the 

 list of Fragrant Wildflowers, it would greatly facilitate 



