Yol. /. 



aUGUST, 1876. 



JVo. 70. 



Nepeta Glechoma, Benth. — I send you a quotation from a letter of Dr. Graj- 

 to Mr. Cauby in reference to a playful little plant which comes from abroad, but 

 is quite at home here. It is spread in every direction and has attracted my atten- 

 tion for a number of years before I heard of its sportive character. Prof. Wood 

 ventured the opinion, that "unless the crosses were present it was a new plant." 

 Now, 1 liave examined the plant for some 1.5 or 20 years in hopes of seeino- that in- 

 teresting little mark; but, on the contrary, the anthers of my Nepeta Glechoma are 

 usuallij inconspicuous, often abortive, at times, amounting to absence of, at least, two 

 of the anthers and stamens. Dr. Gray says it is a "condition rather than a varie 

 ty ;" and a very good humored gentleman, who lives in Easton, calls it a "sport." 

 Whereat an indignant botanic friend here says, "if ours is a spurt, with its invari- 

 able form, covering two counties and never showing the least departure from its 

 so easily recognisable identity, save in tliat one place at Draper's, then all varieties 

 are sports.^ " 



But now for the "Head Center." "The Nepeta Glechoma used to bother me so 

 here wlien I wanted it for my Claris, and it would not make good stamens when I 

 wanted them I But in vacation, wiien I did not care, it made its crosses all right, 

 so I have had no patience with it ever since. Now, being a foreigner, it has no 

 business making new varieties here. It is quite enough if we let it be naturalized.'''' 



Whatever it maj'- be called, whoever sees it hera will regard it a little beauty. 

 It ornaments the hanging baskets of our ladies ; but, on the ground, trails or liangs 

 in festoons or enthrones itself in some tiny nook near tlie mountain rivulet, titting 

 its modes of growth so as to appear to the best effect "sportively." — Howard 

 Shriver. 



[The crosses of Nepeta Glechoma have always been a worry here. The plant 

 occurs in wonderful profusion, making ver}^ large patches. I have examined 

 these patches when in most luxuriant flower and have never seen a single cross and 

 the anthers behave very much as IMr. Shriver has said. [ iiave chai-ged my class 

 to examine all the Nepeta they could and they have never succeeded in finding a 

 cross in this neighborhood. Strange to say, though, all the Nepeta that grows 

 across the Ohio River, within sight of us, has tliese crosses. — En.] 



The "Knobs" of Southern Indiana. — The nearest approach to a mountain 

 range found in Indiana, is in that somewhat remarkable lincof liiils known as the 

 "Knobs." Stai-ting in Floj'd county, from a point on the Ohio river below New 

 Albany, they extend in an irregular northerly course, in a general direction al- 

 most parallel with the Cincinnati uplift, through the counties of Floyd, Clarke, 

 Scott, Jackson and Lawrence. All along their course they rise abruptly from the 

 surrounding valleys to a height of from 300 to GOO feet. Sections of these hills give 

 the following as the most general formation : ochreous clay, stratified chert beds, 

 layers of stratified sandstone alternating with shale, massive sandstone with con- 

 cretions of iron, limestone, and black slate. (Cox, oth Annual Hep., p. 168.) 



All communications addressed to John M. Coulter, Hanover, Ind. 

 Terms: — Subscription $1.00 a year. Situjle Xiinibers 10 cents. 



