THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 2^ 



such a thing as a real wooden flower exists. There are, of 

 course, many curious and fantastic objects in the plant world 

 due to mal-formations produced by the attacks of insects and 

 fung-i and we can well believe the wooden flower to be one of 

 those, but a real wooden rose — never! In a later note our 

 correspondent writes that there is a picture of the "wooden 

 flower" in Engler and Prantl's "Naturlische Pflanzenfamilien" 

 III. 1, p. 161 fig. 10713. According to Engler it is caused by 

 a parasite, a Phoradcudron. — Ed.'\ 



Yellow Holly Berries. — We have received from Mrs. 

 G. W. Sirrine, Greenville, S. Car., some very fine specimens 

 of the yellow fruited holly. This is not a species distinct from 

 the red fruited form, but is simply a variety of it. due to the 

 fading out of the pigment which colors the berries. In most 

 fruits this pigment is anthocyan. A superabundance of this 

 may cause fruits to be nearly or quite black and a small quan- 

 tity may allow the fruits to become yellow. This fact is so 

 well known that no botanist is surprised at finding a yellow 

 form of a red flower, or of a red fruit. Similarly it seems 

 quite possible to breed up red flowers from yellow ones, es- 

 pecially those yellow ones which have spots or streaks of red 

 in them to start with. The old-fashioned tawny day lily 

 (Hemerocallis fulva) is of such a peculiar shade of brick red 

 as to possess little attraction for flower-lovers, but it seems 

 quite possible to extract from this species a flower with only 

 the deeper tints of red and in such a case the flower would 

 doubtless take a sudden jump in popularity. It would be in- 

 teresting if someone would make a list of red flowers with 

 yellow varieties and other lists of red or black fruits with 

 forms in which yellow predominates. 



