BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 245 



name H. palustris was not chosen. Torrey and Gray are responsible for that. 

 The reason of the choice was, that H. Moscheutos stands first in the book, and 

 H. palustris is merely differentiated from that ; reasons which need not have 

 prevailed. . A. Gray. 



Stipules in Saxifragacese are of small account, as Prof. Coulter's pupils 

 show, by sending Mitella diphylla with good stipules between the cauline leaves. 

 It seems to be regularly so. — A. Gray. 



Notes on iEsculus glabra.— One of my botany class, Mr. J. W. Milligan, 

 has been making some observations upon the flowers of this Buckeye which 

 seem worth recording. It is well known that the flowers tend to be polygamous, 

 not so much from the suppression of stamens or pistils, as that they fail to de- 

 velop; at least this is the way the tendency manifests itself with us. All the 

 perfect flowers furnish good examples of protogyny, while others at first sight 

 seem protandrous, but this latter is seen to result from a failure of the pistil to 

 develop. In fact the forms seem so various that one is at first at considerable 

 loss how to " place " them. The flowers are apparently in a transition state and 

 on the way to becoming moncecious. Mr. Milligan observed that the clusters 

 were visited by numerous bees, principally the honey bee, but that they avoided 

 the opened flowers, and only sought the well advanced buds. The petals so 

 poorly protect the nectar that it is easily obtained by thrusting the proboscis 

 between them. The question was at once suggested whether this could in some 

 measure account for the numerous sterile pistils, which far outnumber the fer- 

 tile ones. The open flowers were avoided and could only have been fertilized 

 by the chance of being near the buds, for the bees had evidently learned that the 

 latter contained the nectar. This would necessarily result in some sterile pis- 

 tils, which might lead to polygamy in effect, if not in fact. But what would 

 lead to a suppression of stamens and so make polygamy end in monoecism 

 would be hard to say. At any rate, it is a case of an insect attracted by a 

 flower which it does not visit but may accidentally fertilize, and obtaining nec- 

 tar from a flower which it can neither fertilize nor obtain pollen from. — J. M. C. 



La r Toxicodendron. — I have found at Dayton a specimen of 



Rhus Toxicodendron measuring, some distance above the base, 17 inches in cir- 

 cumference or about 5J inches in diameter. Its first branch was 14J inches in 

 circumference. Another branch was 4 inches in diameter. The specimen is 

 remarkable for its strong and vigorous growth, and twines upon an almost 

 dead locust tree, clothing it with the foliage of the Poison Ivy. It is close to 

 the city and is destined to become quite an attraction to our amateur botanists. 

 — Aug. F. Foerste, Dayton, 0. 



Vincetoxicum. — Following some authority, which it is now not worth 

 while to look up, it appears that in the Synoptical Flora of N. America, I had 

 derived this name from " vinceus, that serves for binding," and toxicum. Dr. 

 Hance, in Britten's Journal of Botany for May, 1883, notes, 1, that the only au- 

 thority for this adjective is a line of Plautus in which vincea is now known to 

 have been a mistake of some copyist for juncea. And, 2, that the old herba- 

 lists, Fuchs and Matthiolus, clearly indicate that the Latin part of this hybrid 

 name is from vincere, to conquer. — A. Gray. 



