38 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



this is the cause, one should expect to find it unusually common 

 this spring throughout the Middle West. The writer would 

 appreciate information on this question, as well as on the dis- 

 tribution, habits, and relative abundance of the species as a 

 whole. If either squirrel-corn or Dutchman's breeches lives in 

 your vicinity, he will be glad to receive your notes and obser- 

 vations upon them. 



The differences between the two may be briefly sum- 

 marized. In squirrel-corn the plants are connected by root 

 stocks, the tubers are rounded and yellow, the corolla is heart- 

 shaped at the base with rounded spurs, the inner petals are 

 large, and the flowers very fragrant. In Dutchman's breeches 

 there is no rootstock, the tubers are small, brown, and ovoid, 

 the coralla has sharp spreading spurs, the inner petals are 

 small, and the flowers slightly fragrant. Both m.ay be expected 

 in rich leaf mold in woods- 



Urbana, III. 



BY THE PONDSIDE. 



BY FRANK DOBBIN. 



A student of botany is many times impressed with the sig- 

 nificance of certain plant names, particularly the specific 

 name. Many of them it is true are simply "names," vague and 

 unmeaning, something by which the plant can be called, while 

 others, by their reference to some peculiarity of the plant or to 

 the locality of its grrrA th, bring before the minds eye not only 

 the plant itself but the spot where we first discovered it. Thus 

 the words natans, laciinosuiii, and aquaticmn, bring before us 

 some water-loving plant gathered at the ix)nd side or per- 

 chance pulled over the side of our boat as we lazily floated 

 about on lake or stream in the still summer afternoon. 



What an interesting place a pond shore is to a lover of 

 botany ! The muddier and boggier the better. Here may grow 

 plants that are not to be found elsewhere, keeping one con- 



