»J^ NOTE and COMMENT |^« 



Length of Roots. — We seldom look very far below the 

 surface in botany. Roots have so little of beauty that we com- 

 monly pay little attention to them unless they are edible. There 

 appears, however, to be considerable diversity among the roots 

 of different plants as regards external characters, though in- 

 ternally they are pretty much alike. Studies carried on in the 

 West show very great differences in the area over which the 

 roots of different species spread. Some, possibly most, occupy 

 the upper two or three feet of soil. I)ul the roots of alfalfa are 

 commonly supposed to go down twenty feet or more in search 

 of water, and those of Lygodesmia jiincea of the Western 

 plains have been found i)enetrating to still greater depths. The 

 palm for such performances, however, must go to the buffalo 

 l)erry {SJiephcrdia anjol-'liyUa) whicli is reported to go down 

 to depths of fifty feet or more. As regards total area covered, 

 the roots of 1 (^ouica Icf'tophylla must be considered. The .soil 

 within ihc rcacli oi this plant is oiWn fifty feet in diameter 

 and ten feet deep. 



PjKrbkris Aquifolia. — I am greatly interested in read- 

 ing the introductory article in the February American Botanist 

 concerning the Berberis Aquifolia, which seems to have de- 

 generated in being removed to the "effete Kast" to what your 

 correspondent calls a "colony of sprawling plants." Here in 

 its native haunts it is a most beautiful shrub from four t(j ten 

 feet in height. It is difficult for me to conceive why the name 

 "trailing" Mahonia should be applied to this plant. According 



