BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 266 



out from the stalk which bore all others white. I have also one plant 

 from the white seed which so far has produced blue flowers. It es- 

 tablishes the fact that an albino can revert to its normal color. — 



Thomas Meehan. 



Rootstocks of Convolvulus sepium.— in a recent visit to 

 Fredericton, N. B., my brother, Prof. L. W. Bailey, of the Universi- 

 ty of New Brunswick, called my attention to the peculiar rootstock of 

 Convolvulus sepium. The Indians of the Melicete tribe had, he 

 Slid, shown these to him on the islands in the river, as articles of 

 food. They are long and moniliform, the expanded, tuberous por- 

 tions being quite round and hard, and the whole root being several 

 feet in length. Upon consulting descriptions of the plant at hand, 

 I find no allusion to these rootstocks being moniliform. They would 

 seem to be quite characteristic. — W. W. Baiu»v, Brown University, 

 Providence, R. J. 



Nympliaea Otlorata- — We learn from our text-books that the flow- 

 ers of Nymphcea open in the day, and after fertilization are drawn under 

 water by the contraction of the peduncle, where the fruit ripens. But 

 of the means of dissemination fLirnished by nature to the seed, they 

 say nothing. 



Mr. R. H. Warder, son of Dr. John A. Warder, has a number 

 of fine specimens of various species, N. alba, N. odorata, N'. tubcrosa, 

 (.?) &c., growing in an artificial pond on his father's place, near 

 North Bend^ Ohio. He has observed that numbers of seedling 

 plants are coming up around the margin of the pond, and was for a 

 time at a loss to know how the seeds strayed away from the neigh- 

 borhood of the parent plant, if they were ripened under water and 

 planted themselves on the tiie bottom, for the seed, as he knew, is of 

 a greater specific gravity than water , and there was no current in the 

 l)ond, and the water is never agitated so as to disturb the sediment. 

 While gathering flowers he observed floating on the water, something 

 resembling frog-spittle. A quantity was collected, placed in a vessel, 

 and upon examination proved to be seeds of Nyntplma enveloped by 

 the membranaceous aril, as described by the authors. This sac 

 though open at the top still contains enough air to float the seed for 

 some time, and thus by favoring winds or currents, it may be trans- 

 ported to some distance from the parent. A number of specimens 

 kindly brought to the writer by Mr. Warder, remained Afloat in a bot- 

 tle, after being roughly handled in transportation, for abouttwenty-four 

 hours, when they escaped from the membranaceous envelope, through 

 its partial decay probably, and sank to the bottom, the sacs still float- 

 ing. There being little chance, as Dr. Warder says, for a new plant 

 to establish itself among the mass of roots of a N^ympfuva bed, this 

 means for the transportation of the seed to a favorable locality, will 

 account partly for the wide distribution of the genus. Winds and 

 currents would carry them tc a distance while still contained in the 

 sac, and when that buoy has lost its buoyancy, or through its decay, 

 the seed drops in a favorable place, and a new plant will be estab- 



