THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 13 



Everybody is familiar with the fact that specimens growing 

 in dry ground or in sunhght wih be more fruitful than speci- 

 mens of the same species in shade and moisture. The w^hole 

 subject is worth a careful investigation. — Fcrii Bulletin. 



RiCHWEED AND Wood-Chucks. — Readers of Thoreau's 

 "Walden" will recall that he early discovered the wood-chuck's 

 fondness for beans for they nibbled off clean a half acre of his 

 crop. Almost any plant may form food for this sly inhabitant 

 of our fields but he has his preferences in the matter of diet as 

 all of us have. Mrs. E. J- Smith, New Britain, Conn., sends 

 us specimens of richweed or clear-weed (Pilca pniiiila) with 

 the note that this is one of his favorites. 



Antiquity of the Ginkgo. — The maidenhair tree (Gink- 

 go bilobo or Salisburia adianfifolia) is one of the most inter- 

 esting of trees. While it belongs to the division of the plant 

 kingdom in which the pines, spruces and cedars are found, 

 its leaves are broad and flat and, as both the common and 

 one specific name suggests, are much like the pinnules of the 

 maidenhair ferns. The tree is also worthy of notice beca.use 

 of the fact that it will grow in smoky regions where few of 

 our common trees will thrive. It is apparently the only sur- 

 \'ivor of a race that once flourished over a wide area. Re- 

 garding this feature we quote as follow^s from Veitch's "Alan- 

 ual of Coniferae." The existing species is the sole survivor 

 of an unknown number of others widely dispersed during 

 geological ages over what is now the temperate and colder 

 parts of the northern hemisphere. Eossil remains of Ginkgo 

 have been discovered in systems that show its ancestral form 

 antedates that of every living tree. It thus presents to us 

 at least one form of vegetation that flourished on the earth 

 W'hen it was inhabited In* unwieldly icthyosauri. gigantic toads 

 and monster deinotheriunis ages before man entered on his 

 inheritance." 



