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. 



Antiquity of the Carnation. — The original carna- 

 tion, known to history for some 300 years before the Christian 

 era, was a five petalled single bloom, about one inch in di- 

 ameter, of a pinkish-mauve color. In its original state it 

 grew generally throughout the southern portion of Europe, 

 being found in abundance in Normandy, whence it is be- 

 lieved by some historians to have been introduced into Great 

 Britain. It was described by Theophrastus as early as 300 

 B. C. — Horticulture. 



Photography with Plant Juices. — It is pretty gener- 

 ally known that photographs are made by covering a prepared 

 paper w^ith a photographic negative and exposing to light 

 under the action of which certain of the chemicals in the 

 paper are decomposed and the picture results. That the juices 

 of flowers may be used in preparing the paper may be new to 

 many botanists. When Sir John Hirschel was experimenting 

 with photography, more than fifty years ago, he discovered 

 that alcholic solutions of the coloring matter found in the 

 petals of various flowers when evenly brushed upon paper, 

 gave most interesting results. Among the flowers experi- 

 mented with were iris, violet stocks, poppy, etc. The juices 

 of many flowers did not yield a color like the petals from 

 which they were expressed, but upon the addition of alkalies 

 or acids took on different hues. Thus the oriental poppy 



14 



