THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 17 



are not only protected from the boisterous winds of the early 

 part of the year but from the hot noonday sun as well. In 

 such a house fems retain their delicate beauty, pansies bloom 

 through the summer, and the bleeding heart, Dutchman's 

 breeches, and trilliums come to a perfection seldom seen in the 

 open. 



Variation in Phlox. — Phlox Drummondi is a native 

 of Texas and not very variable, so far as known, only pink, 

 purple and red varieties existing wild. It was introduced into 

 cultivation about seventy-five years ago. There is now a be- 

 wildering array of color varieties both with entire and with 

 fringed petals and in the so-called star of Quedlinburg varieties 

 the central tooth of the fringed petals is prolonged into a lobe 

 as long or longer than the petal. In the wild form there is ap- 

 parently no hint of such a character. It ought to be no dif- 

 ficult task to repeat the evolution of these forms under test 

 conditions and thus get a full record of what takes place. 

 — Science. 



Wild and Cultivated Varieties. — I well recall that 

 when I first began to study plants I promptly found about a 

 dozen species of red clover — at least they were different from 

 each other. It took a long time to teach me that in plants 

 there are differences and differences, some of which should be 

 taken seriously and others ignored. In general I was taught 

 that any differences that existed in closely related cultivated 

 plants were to be ignored, but in wild plants they would us- 

 ually have to be considered. It is really very fortunate for the 

 cultivated plants that systematic botanists have not taken their 

 differences seriously, otherwise we would have chaos indeed. 

 It is unfortunate that the conservatism which most systematic 

 botanists exhibit toward cultivated plants should not be ex- 

 hibited as well toward wild plants. If more attention had been 

 given to the cultivated plants, think what a vast host of re- 

 puted wild species would have escaped the pangs of christen- 



