102 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



logical law. that the parts of flowers and the resulting seed vessels are metamorphosed 

 leaves. In the case of these maples, the female trees, engaged in developing primor- 

 dial leaves to perfect fruit, make few leaves in addition to those they started with in 

 the spring, until, after several weeks, their fruitage has been completed. But the male 

 flowers, dying immediately after perfecting their pollen, the male trees push into a 

 heavy leaf growth, clothing the tree at a very early period with a dense foilage. 



But another consideration intrudes itself liere. The woody parts of a tree are made 

 up mainly from the atmosphere through the medium of the leaves, and we may sup- 

 pose that the greater the proportionate amount of leaves, the greater would be the 

 woody product Applying now these acknowledged principles to these maple trees, 

 we find some remarkable results. Notwithstanding the male trees are relieved from 

 the enormous strain on the powers of nutrition which the annual and often wonder- 

 fully heavy crops must entail ; and notwithstanding they have, as in many cases this 

 season especially, the advantage of a hundredfold more foilage at so early a period in 

 the season, male trees are no larger, vigorous, or in any way more healthy than the fe- 

 male oues. In a crowded group of tive trees, Avliere a female tree is the central one, 

 and a ui.ile ou the outside, the male, with every advantage of food for the roots, and 

 light and air for its large crop of leaves, and which happens to be an unusually large 

 mass of foilage even for a maple tree, the girth of the trunk is four feet three inches, 

 while the crowded female tree is five feet five inches, or two inches larger, with all its 

 disadvantages. 



"We have been looking for weaker individuals in the male than in the female trees. 

 But since he had first made his discoveries we have learned to distinguish much more 

 clearly between vegetative and reproductive force. A large man is not necessarily 

 a strong man in what we should call vital power; but we me.isure it by endurance 

 under severe trials, and we see now tiiat we need not have looked for weaker trees 

 among the cedars or other dioecious trees, so much as for powers of endurance under 

 reproductive or other essentiallj^ vital strains. Here we have this power thrown 

 heavily in favor of the female tree; and he submitted that dicrcism in trees instead of 

 being an objection, is a powerful argument in favor of his views. [Verbal communi- 

 cation of Mr. Thomas Meelian to Acad. Nat. Bci. of Phila., June 4, 1878. From Pro- 

 ceedings, Part II.] 



Recent I'ubmcatioxb. — Forent Licogruplu/ and Arcluvidixj y . — ^4 Lecture delivered be- 

 fore the Ilannird University Natural History /Society, Ajrril 1~, 1878. By Asa Gray. — 

 In this masterly paper the author couies to the conclusion, full}' corroborated by late 

 geological discoveries in the arctic regions, " that the high, and not the low, latitudes 

 must be assumed as the birth-place of our present flora; and the present arctic vegeta- 

 tion is best regarded as a derivative of the temperate." The distribution of forests is 

 explained to be in accordance with the well known principles of physical geography, 

 but no attempt is made to account for the anomalous- features of the Pacific forest, as 

 the author intimates it would lead simply to conjectures. The similarity between 

 the vegetation of our own Atlantic slope, and that of the western coast of the Pacific, 

 is well brought out and is so remarkable that Dr. Gray professes he will not be surprised 

 to hear of a Sarracenia or Dionmr turning up in Eastern Asia. The object of the lec- 

 ture was well accomplished in showing " that the races of trees, like the races of men, 

 have come down to us through a pre-hist"ric period ; and that the explanation of the 

 present condition is to be sought in the i)ast, and traced in vestiges, and remains, and 

 survivals; that for the vegetable kingdom also there is a veritable Arclneology. 



Report of the Botanist: [Chas. H. Peck.] Made to the Regents of the Universit_y of 

 the State of New York. From the Thirtieth Annual Report. — The contents of this 

 Report are best expressed by the summary given by the author himself. Suffice it to 



