THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 81 



by Dr. Bean. Those who make the names of our genera are 

 not the only sinners in this respect. Some years ago, an ama- 

 teur botanist is said to have named a species from the Yellow- 

 stone, Nationalparkensis ! 



Multicellular Plant Hairs. — The epidermis of many 

 plants produce hairs that are most wonderful and beautiful 

 objects when viewed with the microscope or even a good lens. 

 These hairs are by no means the simple things that one who 

 has not seen them is apt to imagine. Besides the simple one- 

 celled hairs that are most common, there are branched hairs, 

 forked hairs gland-tipped hairs and multicellular hairs whose 

 points radiate from a common center and form most interest- 

 ing and delicate rosettes. The following species are among 

 the best for showing the latter type of epidermal hair and some 

 of them are always to be obtained during the growing season : 

 Vihurnnm lantana, V. Plicata, Deiitzia scabra (crenata), 

 Eleagmis argentea and the species of Shepherdia. 



American Mistletoe. — There are several species of 

 Mistletoe in the United States but the one usually called 

 American Mistletoe is Phoradendron flavescens. This is 

 most abundant in the southern States though it is found in 

 Southern New Jersey, Maryland. Ohio, Indiana and Missouri. 

 In a recent bulletin from the University of Texas on the ana- 

 tomy and some of the biological aspects of this plant several 

 points of interest to the general botanist are given. The mistle- 

 toe is something of a botanist itself and selects only certain 

 trees as hosts. In Texas the trees usually selected are mes- 

 quite, hackberry, elm, oak, ash. osage orange, prickly ash, 

 pecan, gum, walnut, mulberry and china berry. In Austin, 

 about 90 per cent of such trees are infested with Mistletoe. 

 The seeds are distributed by birds, to whose bills and feet the 

 sticky outer covering of the seeds adhere, and do not begin to 

 grow until exposed to proper conditions of temperature and 



