108 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



bloomed the second year with flowers seven eighths of an inch 

 across. In transplanting arbutus care must be taken not to 

 disturb the roots much, else it will injure the fungus that lives 

 on them. 



Trees Injured by Woodpeckers. — From a recent report 

 of the National Department of Argriculture, it appears that a 

 single species of woodpecker attacks no less than 246 species 

 of native trees and 31 introduced species. This bird is the 

 yellow-bellied sapsucker (Spyrapicus variiis) a familiar figure 

 about the trunks of trees at the time the buds are bursting. As 

 its name indicates the bird is fond of the sap of trees and times 

 its migrations northward in accordance with the sap-flow. It 

 is its custom to sink a series of pits through the bark and into 

 the cambium of several trees near together, and then to spend 

 the hours in making the rounds of these wounds and sucking 

 up the sap. The same trees are visited year after year, until 

 in some cases, the bark is pretty thoroughly pitted. Good il- 

 lustrations may often be found in old apple trees. Frequently 

 such attacks result in permanent injury to the trees but many 

 species seem able to thrive in spite of them. When the wounds 

 quickly heal up, as they usually do, there is formed a curious 

 twisted condition of the woody fibers which makes that pecu- 

 liar effect called bird's-eye. Whether all bird's-eye wood is 

 due to this cause does not seem to be known. 



LiNNAEAN Trinomials. — Those who do not delve deeply 

 into the history of botany have the idea that Linnaeus was the 

 first to substitute two Latin or Greek words for the string of 

 descriptive terms that earlier stood as the name of each species. 

 It is true that to Linnaeus we are chiefly indebted for empha- 

 sizing the fact that two words are quite sufficient in the desig- 

 nation of any species, but it is also true that authors before his 

 time sometimes used but two. The facts in the case seem to be 

 that the opinions upon this point were gradually crystallizing 



