44 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



one looks upon a bed of Podophyllum peltatttm the leaves only- 

 are seen and the full leaf name seems wise. The plants which 

 raise one umbrella-leaf support nothing- else, but the stalks 

 raising two umbrellas are richer. Beneath them is hidden a 

 short stemmed, waxy, white blossom, which gives way to a 

 delicious yellow apple in the fall. Later in the season there 

 are many more blooming plants with leaf names, but some of 

 us love to recall the time "When the lilac-scent is in the air and 

 Fifth-month grass is growing." 

 Nezv Washington, Pa. 



Origin of Naval Oranges. — Dr. Walter Mendelson 

 writes : Will you kindly give in the American Botanist an ex- 

 planation of the "navel" orange — the inclusion of one fruit 

 within another. I recently had such an orange where the in- 

 cluded portion was large and juicy but quite bitter (like a re- 

 version to the wild orange) while the outer fitiit was edible. 

 This bitterness I have never noticed before — [The navel orange 

 is a bud sport that originated from the common seeded orange. 

 It seems best explained upon the supposition that after the 

 fruit had partly formed, a new growth impulse carried the 

 center of the nomial fruit further on. Such phenomena are 

 examples of poliferation. Other illustrations are often found 

 in flowers, where a new blossom may appear from the center 

 of an older one. Examples are not rare in which the young 

 seeds or even the ovules while still enclosed in the ovary have 

 grown out into new plants. In the majority of flowers, the 

 different parts spring from the tip of the stem and are not 

 separated from one another by distinct internodes. There is 

 no reason, however, why the intermodes should be suppressed, 

 and in several, such as the spider flower (Cleome), they are 

 not. In the navel orange something similar takes place. An- 

 other curious plant in which the seed is borne outside the ovary 

 is the cashew illustrated in volume XI of this magazine. — Ed.] 



