BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 75 



look like an equation in affected quadratics it loses much of its at- 

 tfactiveness to the ordinary botanist. 



The Editors of the Gazette propose to take a summer vaca- 

 tion, and to be relieved for a month or two from editorial duties. The 

 August number will, therefore, not be published as usual, during the 

 last week of July, but publication will be deferred to the last week ot 

 August, when a double number, of at least 30 pages, will be published 

 for August and September. Any communications sent during the 

 months of July and August should be addressed to the Editors at the 

 Botanic Garden, Cambridge, Mass. We hope that subscribers will 

 take careful note of the above, and not be sendmg us queries as to 

 what has become of the August Gazette. 



I 



NoTUL/E ExiGU/E. — Eremufus rolnistus, that stately Liliaceous 

 plant of Turkestan, which is now displaying its raceme of half a yard 

 in length in the Cambridge Botanic Garden, exhibits strong pro- 

 terandry correlated with a movement of the style, analogous to that 

 of Sabbatia. When the flower opens the slender style becomes at 

 once strongly deflexed ; on the second or third day, when the stigma 

 becomes receptive and the anthers effete, the style straightens and 

 brings itself nearly into the line of the axis of the flower. 



"The collection of Venezuelan Mosses put up into sets of 145 

 species each, named by Dr. Mueller, with a printed form of ticket, 

 along with a copy of the pamphlet (from Linnava) in which they are 

 enumerated, and the very many new species described, is now fur- 

 nished for $14, by Adolf Schrader, No. 224 West State St., Colum- 

 bus, Ohio. — A. Gray. 



Vitality of Serotinous Comes. — In a seed so large as any 

 one of the Pines referred to, there need be no prolonged experiment 

 to ascertain its vital power. All seeds change tlje normal color when 

 the germinating power is lost. If a pine seed has an ivory white tint 

 when cut across, it may grow, no matter how many years old it may 

 be. I say may grow, be ause there are many contingencies on which 

 success is dependent besides the vital conditions of the seeds them- 

 selves. Germinating pine seeds are susceptible to fungoid attacks 

 beyond any seeds 1 know, and they, are very often wholly destroyed • 

 before the radicle has hardly pushed through the seed coat. In Prof. 

 Sargent's experiments the seed were sown on the 17th of May, and 

 "the final examination was made on the 15th of December." The final 

 examination should have been made within six weeks of sowing, as in 

 Finns contorta, all would have been sprouted in that time that intend- 

 ed to grow, and those with injured radicles would have been distinctly 

 seen. 



As the original discoverer of living trees of Piniis piingens in 

 Pennsyb'ania (an old cone having been found by Professor Porter a 

 few months before) I have taken an interest in watching its behavior. 

 The cones would scarcely be called serotinous as a general thing, for I 

 have often found cones of the same season open in October, and all 



