THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 55 



case for here and now we purpose showing that it is not, by 

 citing from the same article another still longer, namely Riibus 

 Idacus Linnaeus, variety acculeatissirmts Regel and Tilling 

 forma albits (Fuller) Fernald. 



Origin of Flowering Plants. — In a general way it is 

 known that flowering plants have arisen from fern-like plants 

 just as the ferns themselves, are known to have 

 originated from still lower orders of plant life, but 

 the exact line by which the flowering plants descended 

 from lower plants is shrouded in shadows which continued 

 study may never entirely dispel. There is a considerable gap 

 between ferns and the higher plants which may have one day 

 been filled by species of fern-like flowering plants which are 

 now extinct or found only in a fossil condition. Many botan- 

 ists see in the fruiting spikes of Selaginella, the cones of the 

 pine, the catkins of the willow and other amentaceous trees 

 and the cone-like carpel-clusters of the magnolias, evidences 

 of a line of evolution, but other botanists, equally eminent, 

 regard the pines, willows and their allies as reduced descend- 

 ants of other families and would derive the flowering plants 

 directly from some Cycas-Vike gymnosperm through the mag- 

 nolia and its allies. Superficially the flowers of the magnolia 

 are much like those of Cycas, with the exception of course, that 

 in the magnolia the seeds are enclosed in the carpels while in 

 Cycas they are not, and the latter also lacks petals. Petals, 

 however, were doubtless once merely sterile carpels or stamens. 



The Waning Hardwood Supply. — In former days, 

 certain desirable kinds of lumber were so cheap and abundant 

 that it did not pay to saw certain inferior kinds of woods. The 

 increasing demand for hardwoods that is being made upon 

 our forests has brought even these less desirable woods upon 

 the market, often at prices higher than was formerly paid for 

 the best grades of better lumber. The principal uses for hard- 



