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THE GARDENER'S MONTHL Y 



[January, 



ture was of leaf origiu?" What have you in 

 view?" 



[It is of course well known to the students of 

 Dr. Gray's works, that he follows the lead of 

 Gaudichaud in supposing that plant cells first 

 unite to form a primordial organism which Dr. 

 Oray calls a Phytomer, or iuternodal stem, and 

 that leaf structure follows, — but Herbert Spencer 

 supposes that the first eflbrt of the vegetable 

 cell is to organize as leaf-blade, and that all 

 structure results from this eflbrt. It is our be- 

 lief that the greater portion of morphologists 

 M'ho have studied the two hypotheses prefer the 

 latter, though the fact that so eminent a botan- 

 ist as Dr. Gray prefers the former, will be natu- 

 rally regarded as weighing heavily in its favor. 

 —Ed. G. M.] 



Fruiting of Wistaria. — Miss E. P. K., 

 Hartford, Conn., writes : "We are told that you 

 have spoken in your paper of the fact that it is 

 rare for the Wistaria vine to produce seeds. Our 

 vine, which is about twenty years old, has been 

 for several years thickly covered with pods, of 

 which we send you a sample." 

 i^[We have not simply said it is rare for the 

 Wistaria to produce seeds, but that it is rare for 



it to produce seeds till its vegetative condition, 

 or its growth-force is in a measure exhausted. 

 In illustration of this we have pointed out that 

 fruit is rarely seen on vines running over trel- 

 lises or trees, until by age, or nothing further 

 for the branchlets to twine on, the growth force 

 is exhausted, — while Wistarias trained to be self- 

 supporting, that is dwarf trees, with nothing 

 whatever to twine a single branchlet on, are 

 generally productive. In the case of a Wista- 

 ria that has its vital or nutritive powers (for the 

 terms are nearly synonymous) assisted by tree or 

 trellis, the reproductive does not follow the 

 growth force for ten or fifteen years, while a 

 Wistaria made to assume a self-supporting con- 

 dition, will bear freely in four or five. The 

 point was made to show that the non-fruitfulness 

 of the Wistaria, as after commented on, was not 

 through the agency or non-agency of insects in 

 cross-pollenizing the flowers, but was rather a 

 matter connected with nutrition; a subject 

 which in its relation to the sexual condition of 

 flowers has rarely been examined by any but 

 the writer of this. This paper on Wistaria was 

 intended to be a contribution with others 

 already made to that subject. — Ed. G. M.] 



Literature, Travels \ Personal Notes. 



COMMUNICA TIONS. 



NOTES AND QUERIES-No. 8. 



BY JACQUES. 



Evolution made easy. — The great mathemati- 

 cian, Kirkman, made the following exquisite 

 translation of a well-known definition : " Evolu- 

 tion is a change from an indefinite, incoherent 

 liomogenity to a definite, coherent heterogenity, 

 through continuous differentiations and integre- 

 gations." Nature, not quite satisfied with this, 

 translates it into plain English, thus: "Evolu- 

 tion is a change from a nohowish. untalkabout- 

 able, allalikeness, to a somewhatish and in-gen- 

 eral-talk-aboutable not-at-all-alikeness, by con- 

 tinuous somethingelsifications and sticktogether- 

 ations." Xo opinion or verification is intended. 



The Beheading of Flies by a Western Plant. — 

 Professor Gray requests those who have an op- 

 pni-timity of obtaining the plant Mentzelia or- 

 nata and M. nuda, both of which occur in our 

 Western plains and prairies, to investigate 

 whether this cruel behavior to flies is well 

 founded. It is declared by a French naturalist, 

 who has studied it in Paris, that the roughness 

 of the stiff bristles or barbs of each whorl of the 

 plant are interspersed with softer ones, which 

 secrete a viscid matter attractive to insects. 

 Flies thrust the proboscis into the harpoon-like 

 bristles, and when withdrawn the head is held 

 fast. The harder the backward pull, the more 

 extensive is the attachment to the sharp barbs, 

 and the head becoming congested, the insect is 

 seldom able to disengage it, and it is twisted off 



