UNUSUAL FORMS IN PLANTS. 371 



changes of temperatiire than those which live on land. The white 

 whale can be kept the year ronnd in New York city if it can have 

 a refrigerating plant to give it the temperature which it needs, and 

 proper food. 



We bring polar bears to ISTew York wdiich suffer in summer, if 

 not in our comparatively mild winters, and tropical animals which 

 barely survive, but these land mammals are not so susceptible to 

 climatic influences as are the fishes and the purely aquatic mammals, 

 like the whales. These can never be kept long by the crude means 

 which have been employed. From the purest air they have been 

 changed to the more or less vitiated air where thousands of human 

 beings are crowded and in a temperature which is unnatural. If 

 we would keep them we must give them better chances for living 

 than in open tanks in the summer temperature of New York. 



UNUSUAL FORMS IN PLANTS. 



By BYKON D. HALSTED. 



THE unexpected is apt to occur. Along with the regularity in 

 living things, which we call '^ uniformity of Nature," there is 

 so strong a tendency to vary that one almost expects to find a turn 

 in the avenues of life sooner or later, and that gradual or sudden, as 

 the case may be. We will not stop to discuss the open question of 

 whether we are possessed by an inherent quality of variation, or as 

 creatures of circumstances, subject to the controlling forces of our 

 environment. 



Yesterday w^hile looking at a row of seedling peaches, all from 

 the same lot of pits, one of the miniature trees was found to be 

 bronze or copper colored throughout. This set me to thinking. 

 Here was a " sport," as it is termed, and if I take good care of the 

 abnormity, bud it into common stock, etc., the landscape archi- 

 tects and ornamental gardeners may. thank me for the novelty that 

 will please their wealthy patrons. 



Leaving aside the abnormal as met with in the animal world, for 

 much of it is more painful than otherwise to contemplate, let us 

 glance at some of the unusual things occurring among plants. 



One first thinks of some strange forms in leaf, and if the eyes 

 are opened to them they may be met with upon every hand. The 

 " four-leaf " clover is lucky perhaps only because the finder is 

 sharper-eyed than others, and stands a brighter chance of seeing 

 success as it crouches almost invisible in the wild grass, the tilled 

 field, or wherever the eyes may be set to find it. 



