? 1) 



NOTE AND COMMENT 



a ^ o 



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. 



Flowers of the Dogwood. — The summer and autumn 

 flowers are perfected with great rapidity but those which ap- 

 pear early in spring often require almost incredible periods 

 of time for their completion. W. C. Morse who has been 

 studying the buds of the flowering dog-wood (Cornus florida) 

 reports in the November Ohio Naturalist that these flowers 

 begin to be formed early in July though they are not to open 

 until some eleven months later. 



Ramie. — Since mankind left off the wearing of the skins 

 of animals for clothing, he has had to depend almost entirely 

 upon the five textiles, wool, silk, cotton, hemp and flax. Only 

 three of these are derived from the vegetable kingdom and 

 although there are nearly half a million different species of 

 plants it is not likely that our supply will be much increased 

 from this source. It requires peculiar characteristics for a 

 vegetable fibre to be useful in spinning and weaving. It must 

 be long, fine, stout but flexible, and easily removed from the 

 plant and spun into thread. The stout bast fibres in the bark 

 of various plants are likely to be our future source of textiles 

 as they have been in the past. Many plants whose fibres might 

 be used are known, but the difficulty of separating these fibres 

 from the other tissues of the stem is a great drawback to their 

 use. In recent years great progress in this direction has been 



64 



