214 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[July, 



the flow of liquids through the plant, as well as 

 the initial step, the entrance of the solutions into 

 the root and hairs. Where these liquids flow 

 after passing into the plant can not he consid- 

 ered here. Suffice it to say, a growing plant is 

 always in a state of unstable equilibrium, with 

 materials in solution continually changing place. 



The amount of absorption by the root hairs is 

 often very great, as careful estimates have shown. 

 When rapid evaporation is going on from the 

 leaves, a demand for fluid from below is created 

 which must soon reach the hairs, and they make 

 good the loss. 



From the function, position and delicate struc- 

 ture of the root hair at least one important 

 practical conclusion can be drawn — that of the 

 importance of their preservation, when plants are 

 undergoing transplanting, potting or other like 

 change, thus often saving the life 'of the whole 

 plant. 



There are many other plant hairs besides those 

 which grow from the superficial cells of roots, 

 and they may furnish the suliject for a few re- 

 marks in a future number of the Monthly. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



" Peach and Apricot Hybrids. — H. M. Engle 

 says he has cross-fertilized the peach with the 

 apricot pollen, and had produced several new 

 varieties, two of which are acquisitions, being 

 highly colored, and of excellent quality." 



The above is on the authority of the Boston 

 Oultivator. Mr. Engle gave us a very different 

 account. He cross-fertilized the peach with an 

 apricot, and though the peach perfected fruit 

 under this apricot pollen, there was no other 

 evidence of potency in the apricot pollen. There 

 were no characteristics of the apricot in the pro- 

 geny. The progeny were simply good, bright 

 colored peaches, and Mr. Engle does not regard 

 them as hybrids of the apricot. 



'Nuts for the Scientific to Crack.' — "At a 

 late meeting of the Massachusetts Horticultural 

 Society, the Secretary read a very interesting 

 letter from the venerable Prof Jared P. Kirtland 

 of East Eockport, Ohio, giving an account of a 

 curious hybrid between the Western hickory and 

 the black oak. Externally they resemble hick- 

 ory nuts, in every particular, and on cracking 

 they split longitudinally into two equal parts, ex- 

 hibiting in place of the usual hickory kernel or 

 meat, perfectly formed acorns of excessively 

 bitter taste, together with well-defined stems, 



such as attach the acorns to the limbs of the 

 oak. A quart of these hybrid nuts were collect- 

 ed under a hickory tree overspread by a larger 

 black oak, two of which were sent to Dr. Kirt- 

 land, and were deposited by him in the cabinet 

 of the Kirtland Natural History Society at Cleve- 

 land. Such a hybrid leads one to suspect the 

 possibility of unions which had previously been 

 deemed impossible, and Dr. Kirtland goes into 

 some speculations as to the possible results to 

 horticulture by crossing the apple with the wild 

 crab ; the apricot and the plum ; the quince and 

 the pear, etc." 



The above is from the Boston Cultivator- It is 

 to be regretted that our good friend Dr. Kirtland 

 did not submit his paper to some one who has 

 made hickories a study, before sending it to Bos- 

 ton for publication. As a general rule, the ker- 

 nel of the walnuts are rough, as everybody 

 knows, — ruminated, as a botanist would say, — 

 but in Carya amara, the bitter-nut hickory, it is 

 very often quite smooth, as in the acorn, and 

 occasionally so in the pig-nut hickory. It is 

 simply an abnormal condition in no way related 

 to hybridism. 



Callirhoe involucrata. — The following from 

 a Marj'sville, Kansas, correspondent refers to this 

 beautiful plant : " It has been very hard times 

 in Kansas the last two years, but crops look 

 well. I send a flower and leaf of a plant that I 

 found on the overland route to California, and 

 should like to know the name of it. It is a 

 beautiful running plant, root like a parsnip." 



Seeds from Male Plants of Aucubas. — They 

 are having the same " bother " over the male 

 Aucubas in England that we used to have over 

 our barren strawberries till we learned better. A 

 strawberry that usually has its stamens abortive, 

 and thus be known as a " pistillate " variety, un- 

 der some circumstances will perfect its stamens, 

 become hermaphrodite and bear fruit. Berries 

 are sometimes found on the male Aucubas, and 

 so some assert that " male Aucubas bear fruit." 

 It is a play upon words, and hardly worthy of 

 the serious discussion it is receiving. Of course, 

 if a plant usually bearing only stamens, produces 

 a fruit, it can be only by the occasional develop- 

 ment of a pistil among the stamens or on the 

 plant — just as everj' American farmer knows an 

 occasional productive flower will be produced 

 and bear a grain in a male tassel of Indian corn. 

 It is a simple thing to make so much mystery 

 out of. 



