THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 29 



eat the plant, they are likely to develop an acute inflamation 

 of the skin, but black-skinned cattle go unharmed. Apparen'^ly 

 the trouble requires sunlight for development for if wh^.te 

 skinned cattle are painted black with a mixture of charcoal and 

 linseed oil, they too escape. 



Consider the Hawthorns. — The craze for making new- 

 species in the hawthorn genus (Crataegus) having to a con- 

 siderable extent subsided, it is possible to pause for a moment 

 and take account of stock. When the hawthorn mania w-as 

 at its height, there were supposed to be at least a tliousand good 

 species in the genus, but now, according to the second edition 

 of Britton and Brown's "Illustrated Flora," the number has 

 shrunk to some three hundred. In North America, from the 

 Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi \ alley and from \"irginia 

 northward, there is reported to be 73 species. Eighty-four 

 other forms are regarded as variations or possibly hybrids of 

 those designated as distinct species and are relegated to syno- 

 nomy. "Gray's jManual" is still more conservative, in this 

 respect since it recognizes but 65 species. It also includes 44 

 "varieties" and thus really outdoes the Britton and Brown 

 W'Ork which is regarded as fairly radical. Gray, however, re- 

 duces 34 other described species to synonyms. Even with 

 Gray's liberality, some of the reputed species from Illinois fail 

 to be mentioned at all. Since most of the recent species were 

 named for botanists, botanizers, and their friends, this whole- 

 sale reduction to synonomy of botanical lights might be viewed 

 as little short of a calamity. Still, in botany as in many other 

 things, it may be better to have been named and reduced to 

 synonomy than never to have been mentioned at all ! 



Dogbane Insect Traps. — In general, plants are pretty 

 well adapted to their situation in life, but certain species ap- 

 pear to show the effects of over-specialization. This is es- 

 pecially true of devices for pollination which in several cases 



