NOTE AND COMMENT f 



Wanted. — Short notes of interest to the general bot- 

 anist are always in demand for this department. Our readers 

 are invited to make this the place of publication for their 

 botanical items. It should be noted that the magazine is is- 

 sued as soon as possible after the fifteenth of each month. 



Croton Tinctorum. — A little known and interesting in- 

 dustry of the south of France is the culture of great quantities 

 of tliis little cottony, ash-white stiff-stemmed annual, the dried 

 plants of which are shipped by boat-loads to Holland. The 

 Dutch extract from the leaves and fruits the red dye with 

 which their ball-shaped cheeses are colored. This croton has 

 nothing in common with our ornamental greenhouse crotons. 

 — Gardening World. 



Vitality of Seeds. — The opinion is pretty general that 

 some seeds may retain their vitality for centuries. Botanists 

 usually scout the idea that seeds that have lain so long dor- 

 mant will grow, but they are not always able to refute the 

 statements that plants have been raised from such seeds. Oc- 

 casionally a newspaper yarn whose verisimilude is such that 

 the general public readily believes it, will recount the raising 

 of corn from seeds found buried with a mound-builder, or the 

 growth of wheat found entombed with an Egyptian mummy, 

 but in cases where plants have apparently been produced from 

 such seeds it is usual to find that the claim in which the seeds 

 were found had been "salted." Maize or Indian corn was un- 

 known to the Egyptians, and when a gullible American is 

 able to raise maize from seeds found with a mummy in Egypt 

 the circumstantial evidence is pretty strong that he has been 



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