86 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[March y 



immediately removed and burnt as soon as dis- 

 covered." 



I see by the Scientific American of recent date 

 that Prof. Barnard, of Cornell University, claims 

 to have been the first to discover the mite, and 

 read a paper on the subject before the Scientific 

 Association at Saratoga last August. You will 

 perceive by the dates given in both instances 

 that my discovery was prior to either by some 

 years. 



ONE-FLOWERED CANCER ROOT. 



BY MISS M. EVELYN HUNTER, SUMMERVILLE, S. C. 



I am reminded by the note of Mrs. D. W., Sum- 

 merville, S. C, in the December number of the 

 Gardener's Monthly, who describes a " Curi- 

 ous Fungi," in form like an English snowdrop, 

 of another curious plant which is known in "Vir- 

 ginia to botanists as Orobanche uniflora, or popu- 

 larl)', One-flowered Cancer-root. It is also 

 known by the Colored race as Dutchman's pipe. 

 It is a leafless parasite on the roots of trees and 

 shrubs, and is from six to eight inches high, and 

 when it first sends up the scaly scapes from its 

 irregularly knobby root, they are of a delicate 

 wax-like hue, changing from exposure to the air 

 and light to a tough dingy yellow. This plant 

 delights in very shady situations, and has but a 

 very slight attachment by its root, to the sub- 

 stance on which it grows. It is found under 

 pine trees generally, and is in flower in the 

 middle or beginning of May, and soon fades 

 when culled. Barton in his Medical Botany, 

 gives a full description of this little plant, and a 

 very accurate plate of it. 



ACCIDENTS IN NATURE. 



BY MARGID DIGRAM, PHILADELPHIA. 



The following paragraph taken from the 

 Press, of July IGth brings to my recollection a 

 fallen pine tree I saw back of the little settle- 

 ment of Green Cove Springs, on the St. John's 

 river, in the State of Florida. The tree men- 

 tioned in the paragraph and the one described 

 by me below may have have fallen from the 

 same cause. The clipping says : "A young 

 Chippewa hunter was shooting squirrels in the 

 woods that border Lake Huron, in Ontario, 

 when a large pine fell upon him, knocking him 

 down and crushing his leg. He could not rise 

 nor remove the tree which was lying across his 

 broken leg. To lie there and starve to death 

 seemed all that was left to him. In his dilemma 



he took out his knife, cut oflT his leg, bound it 

 up with his sash, dragged himself along the 

 ground to his canoe, and paddled home to his 

 wigwam on a distant island. There the care of 

 his wounds was completed, and he is still alive." 



The Florida tree, as I saw it, with the entire 

 length of its trunk closely applied to the per- 

 fectly even surface of the ground, had evidently 

 but recently fallen. About seventy-five or 

 eighty feet away from it, and running in a 

 parallel direction, was a sluggish stream with 

 marshy banks densely covered with a variety of 

 trees and shrubs. Pine trees usually have tap 

 roots, but this specimen was an exception. The 

 root corresponded with the ordinary tap root ia 

 thickness, but instead of descending directly 

 from the base of the trunk as is its usual habit, 

 it turned at once laterally and ran toward the 

 brook mentioned, which it doubtless reached. 

 The ground from the tree to the brook fell in a 

 very gradual slope, and as this great root grew 

 just beneath the surface, the tree in falling raised 

 many feet of it out of its shallow bed into view. 

 As far as exposed the bark covering it closely 

 resembled that of the trunk. 



It remains a mystery to me how the great 

 weight of this tree's seventy feet of trunk could 

 have so long maintained an upright position. 

 When it fell it must have been with but slight 

 noise as there was apparently so little to resist 

 its downward movement. A person standing 

 near it in the line of its descent would have had 

 no warning and death would have come to such 

 an one as it did to the lower section of the 

 Indian's leg as quickly as by a stroke of light- 

 ning or a well aimed pistol ball. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



EuPATORiUM, Ageratum, ETC — Miss Hunter 

 says : " If A. B. will refer to page 127 of the sec- 

 ond volume of Barton's Medical Botany, he or 

 she will find the following statement : ' Most of 

 the species of Eupatorium, of which Willdenow 

 enumerates seventy-one, are indigenous to Ame- 

 rica. Those indigenous to our State are all 

 plain-looking plants, except E. coelestinum.' 



"I suppose there is a different classification^ 

 since, as Gray gives Conoclinium under sub-tribe 

 1, Eupatorise, and under that head describes 

 C. coelestinum. 



" I can only say, that ' the blue Eupatorium, 

 sometimes called Ageratum,' may be a green- 



