THE GARDENERS' MONTHLY 



[January, 



most other orchids — in our plant to be the upper 

 lobe. When carefully examined the lip will be 

 found a subject of no little interest. It has near its 

 base a kind of hinge upon which it turns so as to 

 cover the top of the column. In freshly expanded 

 flowers the lip is found quite firmly erect and if 

 bent down with the finger will spring back. But 

 see what it has done, here are the pollinia attached 

 to it. Let us take another flower and watch the 

 operation. Notice how it draws them from their 

 cells and across the stigma. Now take an older 

 flower and we find the Hp has dropped spontane- 

 ously. From such an operation we would suppose 

 it had something to do with self-fertilization. Last 

 season I tried the experiment of covering a few spikes 

 of buds with gauze nets to see if they would be 

 fertihzed. After flowering every pod began to 

 grow and for a time looked as if they would ripen 

 seed. Then all but one began to wither and fall ; 

 this one grew and matured. Is it not possible that 

 the lip in this and other orchids was for this pur- 

 pose originally ? We see in the two other genera 

 mentioned as related, the same "beautiful beard" 

 which so nicely draws out the pollinia. These may 

 have once had the same relative position as the 

 Calopogon, but as they are now they could not fer- 

 tilize themselves this way, the lip being at the lower 

 part. 



But this is not a question that can be decided 

 without further experinient. Next year I intend to 

 experiment more carefully and fully on the subject. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



On the Annual Grovi'th of Wood. — A few 

 months ago we were called on to notice Dr. 

 Hough's Elements of Forestry, and we stated that 

 cuts made to illustrate one point, did not always 

 represent the whole case accurately. Reference 

 was made to a cut of two year old wood of Eng- 

 lish oak "borrowed from Rossmasster's work." 

 which showed only four "hairlines" in one annual 

 circle of wood, when there should be a very much 

 larger number ; and that the dots should be on the 

 inner instead of the outer circle of the commencing 

 season's growth. In regard to this latter statement 

 two correspondents have written to us, one kindly 

 suggesting that the remark was "inadvertently" 

 made. But it was deliberately written, and was in 

 the writer's mind chiefly from personal examination 

 made during the Centennial year, in comparison 

 with Japan and other woods. That there must 

 have been some mistake the writer now believes 



from the fact that though very much diff"erence ex- 

 ists in the appearances, the little holes or dots seem 

 always larger in the courses which commence the 

 season's growth than in those which follow, some- 

 times almost wholly disappearing before the 

 season's growth ends. In other respects, however, 

 the criticism seems just, and we give the following 

 illustration which we have had made for this 

 note. It is from the leading shoot, two years old, 

 of a ten year old English oak, grown at German- 

 town, and enlarged to a little over double its natu- 

 ral size. 



This cut represents with tolerable accuracy a 

 cross-section of a two-year-old piece of wood. The 

 star-shaped outline of the pith is well represented, 

 then we have eighteen "hair-lines" to the apex of 

 the convex bend, and twenty-four to the concave 

 portion of the line. Small dots of uniform size are 

 scattered freely over the whole surface, though in 

 more or less perfect radial lines. When the next 

 season's growth commences the ducts are larger, 

 and seem to be arranged in a more or less broken 

 circle. In endeavoring to show this larger sized 

 duct, the artist has placed the "hairlines" together 

 closer than they are in the copy given him, and 

 this makes the commencement of the annual 

 growth appear of a darker shade than the other 

 portion of the wood. There is really no difference 

 in the color of the wood, or in the width apart of 

 the "hair lines," and there is nothing whatever to 

 show where the growth of one year ends and the 

 other begins except the more circular arrangement 

 of the dotted ducts, their greater number, and 

 slightly larger size. Those who are fond of look- 

 ing into nature for themselves will find a study of 

 wood with a good pocket lens very fascinating. 

 No two species will be found the same in respect to 

 the arrangement of these ducts, nor what for pop- 

 ular comprehension's sake we have called the 

 " hair lines " as seen in this cut. In some cases the 

 dots are of equal size, spread almost equally over 

 the surface, and giving not the faintest clue as to 

 where the growth of one season ends, or another 



