42 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



in very minute quantities combined with oxygen to form car- 

 bon dioxide. There is about three-tenths of one per cent of 

 this in ordinary air and the plants have to sort over enough 

 of it to make ah the immense crops gathered by man and his 

 httle brothers in feathers and fur. 



Names of Rudbeckia hirta. — When a plant becomes 

 common it soon gets a common name, or several of them. This 

 is true of Rudbeckia hirta which within the memory of man 

 has spread eastward from the great plains until there are few 

 places in the Eastern States where it is not a familiar weed 

 in meadows and along roadsides. In the North it has been 

 dubbed yellow daisy, black-eyed Susan and ox-eye daisy, the 

 latter more properly applied to Chrysanthcinnm leucanthemum, 

 and in the South it goes by the names of cone-flower, nigger- 

 head and golden Jerusalem. In some places it is called sim- 

 ply rudbeckia, but by any name it would thrive as well. 



A New Clover Wanted. — At a recent meeting of the 

 Vermont Botanical Club, H. M. Seely called atten- 

 tion to the fact that while red clover has an abund- 

 ant supply of nectar, our domesticated nectar-gath- 

 erer, the honey-bee, has a tongue too short to reach it. He 

 therefore suggested that it would add greatly to the honey 

 crop if w^e should breed up a race of red clover with shorter 

 corollas in which the nectar would be accessible. By measur- 

 ing the tongues of the bee it is found that the carolla would 

 have to be not longer than twenty millimeters. It is probable 

 that corollas of such length may be found in our fields at 

 present and need only to be selected. The growing of such 

 a clover would not be beneficial to the apiarist alone, but would 

 greatly increase the tonnage of hay throught the increased 

 production of seed due to the pollinating of the flowers by the 

 visiting bees. 



