24(; 



TJdE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



\^Aiisust, 



illustrations, ami the effi'ct produced is by no 

 jneans unsatisfactory. Wc liopi' shortly to pub- 

 lish sonic illustrations, from Sir Joseph's pencil, 

 sh<n\ iu!^ (be appearance of sonic of these trees 

 ill tluir iKilivf country as observed by him in 

 his recent journey. Pinus jionderosa is widely 

 distril)utcd in the Rocky ^lountains, and varies 

 consi(leral»ly in dilVerenl localities, so that it has 

 received several aliases, such a P. hrachyi^tera, 

 P. Beardsleyi. V. En!j;elmanni, P. Benthamiana, 

 P. Sinclairiana, P. Parryana, &c. A «j;ood ac- 

 comit of it, with a figure of the leaves and cone, 

 -will be found in the fourth volume of the Jour- 

 nnl of the lloHicultural Society, 184'.), p. 212, 

 from the pen of Mr. Gordon. " 



J.KiiiTNi NO-RODS. — AVhilc on a recent trip 

 to Rochester, we saw a barn that the day before 

 had been consumed by fire fi-om lightning. 

 The gable end was still standing, protected, per- 

 haps, by the "lightning conductor," which still 

 hung from the ruin. Of course it was " defec- 

 tive," but just how and where it was defective 

 it should be as easy to show before a fire takes 

 place as after. 



Yucca baccata. — Just why the Yucca bac- 

 cata should be called "Rocky Mountain Banana" 

 it is hard to tell. Perhaps it is for the same 

 reason that we have " Rocky Mountain hats," 

 and Rocky Mountain all sorts of things. At 

 any rate this is what an English friend tells us : 



"At a recent meeting of the Linnsean Society, 

 Mr. J. R. Jackson exhibited specimens of fruits, 

 leaves and portions of the stem (used as a sub- 

 stitute for soap) illustrating peculiarities of Yuc- 

 ca baccata, Torrey. This plant extends from 

 South Colorado far into Mexico. Northwards 

 acaule.scent, southwards it developes a trunk ten 

 feet high. The fruit, a dark purple berry, is 

 preserved and eaten as Winter provision, and 

 the plant is commonly known as the Rocky 

 Mountain Banana." 



Vitality of Seeds. — Van Tieghem contri- 

 butes a paper to U Annuales des Sciences Naiu- 

 relles on the reason why some seeds retain vitality 

 longer than others. We have not read the origi- 

 nal, but give the following abstract from an 

 English source : 



"It is a question wholly of the condition of 

 the albumen. In certain oily seeds the albu- 

 men changes its character before the plant is 

 ready to germinate, and then the sprouting 

 plant feeds on just what it finds, and which may 

 or may not be nutritious ; but in other cases the 

 plant feeds directly on the albuminous matter, 



or, in other words, on its endosperm. There are 

 some jilantK which have no all)umon, and these 

 are so constituted that they can gel their nourish- 

 ment directly from the sf)il. In old albuminous 

 seeds that fail to show, the reason is that the al- 

 bumen has all or nearly all been chemically 

 changed, and there is nothing left to give the 

 little germ sui)port till it is able to take care of 

 itself." Our contemporary veiy well adds : 

 " Why ex-allmiuiiious seeds perish is not made 

 clear." 



If the pith of the paper be correctly rendered, 

 it seems rather like saying why some seed sprout 

 rather than why they retain their vitality. As 

 some foresters know, seeds may be gathered 

 from trees on one day and some the next, yet 

 j some of those seeds will grow at once, some re- 

 main in the ground a year, and some not sprout 

 till the third year. 



SCRAPS AND QUERIES. 



Curious Cabbage Leaf.— C.B. F., Raleigh, 

 N. C, sends a cabbage leaf. Along the stout mid- 

 rib of the leaf, a large number of leafy processes, 

 as if small leaf blades have appeared, seeming 

 like smaller leaves growing from the larger one, 

 and giving the rib a pretty fringed appearance. 

 Some of these little leaves branch out into stalks 

 with small heads like Cauliflower points, and, 

 indeed, one can see that with a little more de- 

 velopment they would be flowers. It affords a 

 very interesting illustration of the morphologi- 

 cal fact, that all the parts of a plant are but 

 modified leaves, for here is a leaf doing all that 

 an ordinary Cabbage stalk or stem could do. 

 The Cauliflower, by-the-way, is from the same 

 wild plant that the Cabbage originally came 

 from. Our correspondent says that nearly all 

 the leaves on the one Cabbage were like to this 

 one. 



Double-leaf in a Begonia. — W. N. M., 

 Oswego, N. Y., writes : " I enclose you a rough 

 sketch of a strange freak in a Begonia Rex 

 (var. Queen Victoria). Has the thin* ever come 

 under 3'our notice before — two perfect leaves on 

 one stalk?" 



Three leaves on the plant, and the central 

 one erect, with two large leaf-blades from the top 

 of the strong leaf-stalk. It looks as if the stalk 

 may have been intended for a flower-stem, and 

 concluded finally, as one might say, to bear twin 

 leaves instead. Some such experiences in plants 

 are not uncommon, and are in accord with well- 

 known morphological laws. 



