THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 87 



Vries in his "Plant Breeding." The common evening prim- 

 rose (Oenothera biennis) has an elaborate arrangement for 

 cross-polination, including odor, nectar, color and the ripen- 

 ing of stamen and stigma at different times as well as a differ- 

 ence in position of stamen and carpel, and yet De Vries finds 

 in some specimens that the stamens pollinate the stigmas in 

 the bud and the corollas may even fall off without expanding. 

 All the odor, color, nectar, etc., of such flowers is superfluous 

 and goes to waste. Just as we have figured out how the flow- 

 er acts, it acts differently ! 



Fruit and Temperature. — It is usual to think of fruits 

 in connection with the warmer part of the year, but it would 

 be more correct to connect them with a cooler season. In 

 fact, low temperatures favor fruiting. Although many of 

 our fruits do not mature until summer or autumn they are 

 nearly all begun, that is, the flowers nearly always appear, 

 in the cold spring months. Our apples, peaches, cherries, 

 plums, strawberries, currants, etc., all bloom so early in the 

 year that they are likely to get nipped by a late frost. The 

 crocus and other bulbous plants also refuse to send up their 

 flower-spikes if kept in too high a temperature. When the 

 apple tree is transplanted to warmer lands it may continue to 

 grow, but it soon refuses to produce fruits because the temper- 

 ature does not go low enough to induce blooming. 



Bracken Protected by Law. — In America tlie bracken 

 (Pferis aqnilino) receives scant attention from the land-owner, 

 who probably never thinks of it unless he is devising a way of 

 eradicating it from his flelds. In England, however, the case 

 is different, as indicated by the following communication re- 

 cently published in Gardening World: "1 have read with con- 

 siderable surprise a letter in your issue to-day on the subject 

 of utilizing the young shoots of bracken as food. Your cor- 



