THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 153 



in these blossoms attracted my attention, and after helping the 

 insect to escape I discovered that the six petals are covered on 

 the upper surface with minute hairs, and it is an easy place 

 for a bee's bristly leg to catch. Each node of this vine bears 

 a leaf, a tendril, a sterile flower-cluster and commonly one 

 fertile flower. At the base of an opening flower cluster, in 

 the axil of a three-branched tendril, is a small green pedicelled 

 ball covered with weak bristles like a young chestnut bur. 

 Soon a point comes from its tip and finally a flower of the 

 same form as those above, but frequently larger. About five 

 hundred staminate flowers are held aloft, while one pistillate 

 flower droops beneath. In fruit this bristly ball becomes 

 bladdery. When cut open it emits the scent of cucumber and 

 four pumpkinlike seeds are revealed. — Nell McMnrray, Clear- 

 field, Pa. [It is probably familiar to many, though seldom 

 if ever mentioned, that the fibro-vascular bundles of the wild 

 cucumber are so arranged about the seeds that when separated 

 from the surrounding pulp at maturity they form an object 

 which resembles closely a capacious pair of trousers which 

 are certainly as much like Dutchman's breeches as is the 

 flower that bears this name. It will be recalled that the fibro- 

 vascular bundles of another species" of Cucurbitaceae is of 

 commercial importance. This is the well-known vegetable 

 sponge or dish-cloth obtained from a species of Luff a. — Ed.] 



Quarantine S7. — In your issue of The American 

 Botanist for May, I notice your editorial recommending that 

 horticulturists should have directed their efforts toward estab- 

 lishing safe methods of importing plants instead of urging 

 exclusion. Quarantine No. 37 to which you object provides 

 specifically for the introduction in limited quantities of bulbs 

 and other plants, commercial entries of which are prohibited. 

 The purpose of this exception is to provide new varieties and 

 necessary propagating stock of standard varieties in case su];- 

 plies are not found within the continental United States. 



