THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 39 



slope and near the highway over the mountains. Near us was 

 a tremendous gorge full of all sorts of herbaceous plants and 

 magnificent trees. Columbines, larkspurs and the like were 

 abundant. It was a forecast of the flower-garden I was to 

 meet still higher. With Robert Ridgeway, the ornithologist 

 I explored this gorge and took a bath in the icy stream which 

 gave a part of its water to a rushing flume. 



In the Franconia Valley of New Hampshire I remember 

 the flowering raspberry is gay along the beautiful road to the 

 Profile House; also up the path to Eagle Cliff on the Mt. 

 Lafayette trail. 



So, one after another, the beautiful scenes return to me, 

 as I look at a herbarium sheet of Rubus odoratus. It is sur- 

 prising how charming a dried specimen can be when it is as- 

 sociated with far off memories of lovely scenes and dear com- 

 panions. It blooms again, as we look at it, with all its com- 

 panion plants. 



Providence, R. I. 



THE AGGRESSIVENESS OF PLANTS. 



By Willard N. Clute. 



A NY theory of evolution must of necessity include the idea 

 *^ of a struggle for existence; otherwise there would be 

 no incentive for plants to develop the thousand and one mar- 

 velous adaptations that look toward the preservation and per- 

 fection of those best fitted to survive; but we must not too 

 hastily conclude that this struggle for existence is always be- 

 tween plant and plant or even between the plant and its insect 

 and fungous foes. There are numerous areas where little if 

 any struggle of species with species seems to go on. In certain 

 swamps, for instance, the irises, cat-tails, sedges and the marsh 

 and sensitive ferns form communities which are apparently 



