1879. 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



215 



of the essence prepared therefrom annually I 

 brings £5000 into the treasury. Talking of Chi- 

 nese botanical literature, reminds us that the 

 Japanese have already adopted the botanical 

 nomenclature recognized in Europe and other 

 countries, and their illustrations of the flora of 

 Japan to which the latin names are attached 

 are exceedingly good. 



The Effects of Drought on Plants. — 

 The amount of drought some plants will bear 

 M'ith impunity is surprising. Dr. G. Schweinfurth, 

 in Petermann's MiUheilungen^ gives an account of 

 his recent journey across the Arabian desert, 

 from Heluan to Qeneh, and mentions some in- 

 teresting facts concerning the vegetation. In 

 "WadyX^eneh, he states, no rain had fallen for 

 six years, but some Acacias and Tamarisk were 

 still green and flourishing, and apparently un- 

 affected, whilst the last traces of herbaceous 

 plants had disappeared. In a more favored 

 part he found the valleys covered with Salvia 

 palsestina, a very handsome species, three feet 

 high, with a profusion of sky-blue flowers. 



Annual Orchids. — The general newspaper 

 office, often has handy men in connection 

 therewith who will on the shortest notice write 

 *'a highly interesting article" on subjects they 

 know nothing whatever about. A good ency- 

 clopfedia and shrewdness to keep from error, is 

 the talent required. But sometimes these sharp 

 fellows get caught, and once in a while they try 

 their hand with professedly scientific magazines. 

 Prof. Gray recently showed up one of these 

 "fancy sketches" in the' American Naturalist, 

 and here is a choice bit of the same sort, as 

 translated by the Scientific American from La 

 Nature. "While the orchidacete indigenous in 

 the temperate zones are generally annual or bi- 

 ennial herbs of from six inches to eighteen 

 inches in height, the tropical zones possess a 

 great many which are perennial." There are a 

 great many funny things in this article, but the 

 "generally annual" orchids of the temperate 

 zone is enough for our pages. 



Salt Lake and Tree Planting.— The wri- 

 ter of this was probably among the first to show 

 that the ideas of Humbolt and others, as collected 

 by Mr. Marsh, in his work, that the cutting away 

 of forests, however deplorable from many points 

 of view it might be, had nothing to do with the 

 rise or fall of the water in lakes. In the re- 

 view of Dr. Hough's American Association paper 



in the Kew York Tribune, it was at any rate 

 shown that the rise in the waters of Great Salt 

 Lake was not due to the planting of trees by 

 the Mormons, for that really they hMd cut away 

 infinitely more than they had planted. Geology 

 now confirms the point. As to tree planting, 

 Mr. King, in the report of the United States 

 Geological Survey, shows this to be a wrong 

 inference, for a similar increase has affected all 

 the lakes of the great basin. He shows partly 

 from Observations connected with the growth of 

 trees on the Sierra, that this is due to a climatic 

 oscillation that began about 1860, and which 

 was the first of its kind and extent that has oc- 

 curred within at least 250 years. An exchange 

 says that this question of oscillation of climate 

 is full of importance to the populations that are 

 pouring into the regions of the great plains dur- 

 ing the present moist extreme. 



SCRAPS AND QUERIES. 



Sweet Scented Galium. — Mrs. L. A. Mill- 

 ington sends from Michigan, a piece of Galium 

 triflorum, which is as fragrant as new-mown 

 hay. So far as we know it has not been recorded 

 that this plant possesses fragrance when dried. 



SaxifragaPennsylvanica.— W.H.P.,Iowa 

 City, Iowa. This is the plant you send. It is 

 widely spread through damp meadows in the 

 Northern Atlantic States. Though devoid of 

 beauty, it is an interesting member of the great 

 family of Saxifrage. 



Phenomenal Growth.— T. T. S., Roches- 

 ter, N. Y., writes : "My attention was attracted 

 this morning, (June 7th,) by the appearance of 

 a Seckel pear tree in my garden. On examina- 

 tion I found a perfect blossom on the end of 

 nearly each specimen of fruit. The firmness 

 and freshness of the bloom would seem to indi- 

 cate that the blossoms were new ones, rather 

 than the original bloom, although I cannot un- 

 derstand how this can be possible. I send you 

 some specimens by mail, by which you will see 

 some of the fruit is of considerable size." 



[An examination showed ' that these little 

 pears had not had petals before this season. It 

 is a remarkable case of arrest and subsequent 

 development of petals. The calyx had evi- 

 dently expanded at the proper time in Spring, 



