54 



THE GARDENERS' MONTHLY 



February, 



highly ornamental plant, and is pronounced by 

 Haage & Schmidt, the Erfurt seedsmen, as the 

 best of all the Xeranthemums." 



Handsome Birds' Nksts. — A correspondent 

 suggests that the wood pewee covers its nest with 

 lichens to disguise it — to make it look like a dead 

 branch — that its enemies may be deceived, and 

 not that it has any love for beauty. 



Pink from the Arctic Region. — Among the 

 interesting souvenirs of the De Long Arctic Expedi- 

 tion, are some pine cones, which do not seem to be 

 of the known American species. They have been 

 placed in the hands of Mr. Josiah Hoopes, author 

 of the Book of Evergreens, for determination. 



Formic Acid and Honey. — Honey, according 

 to A. Vogel, says the Scientific American, contains 

 on an average one per cent, of formic acid. Ob- 

 serving that crude honey keeps better than that 

 which has been clarified, E. Mylius has tried the 

 addition of formic acid, and found that it prevents 

 fermentation without impairing the flavor of the 

 honey. 



CiTV Smoke. — Smoke will soon be at a premium. 

 From 2,800,000 cubic feet of smoke given out by 

 say 1,000 cords of wood, 12,000 pounds of acetate 

 of lime, 200 gallons of alcohol, and 25 pounds of 

 tar may be obtained. 



Variation in Cotton Plants. — A writer in 

 the Dixie Farmer, says there is as much trouble in 

 keeping a breed of cotton pure, as a breed of corn 

 or melons. There is a constant tendency to vary 

 from the type. He behexes it to be caused by the 

 visits of insects. 



Wet Weather and the (Growth of Trees. 

 — It is said that some scientific society has insti- 

 tuted a series of experiments to find out in the far 

 away past which were the wet and which were the 

 dry seasons, by having examined the thickness 

 of annual growths of wood in old trunks. It is 

 surprising that any intelligent body in these days 

 should not know better than this. Wood is not 

 plastered over the old series, as a painter would put 

 one coat on the coat which had gone before, but is 

 an act of vital power proceeding from the cells of 

 wood of the preceding year or season's growth. 

 The amount of wood deposited depends very much 

 on the food to be had in the vicinity of the little cells 

 which have to make the new mass. If, say, at ten 

 feet from the ground, there be a little branch with 

 leaves having a chance to make food, the annual 

 ring of wood will be thicker just below than at two 

 or three feet lower down. In fact if we cut a trunk 



across at half a dozen places, and take any one 

 side of the trunk for examination, we shall find 

 the "annual ring" of any one year varying in 

 thickness. One section would tell us it rained that 

 year like a deluge, while another section of the 

 same tree would tell us that particular year was the 

 dryest on record. However, if this is not sufficient, 

 it may be as well to add that Sir Herbert Christi- 

 son, the great Scotch chemist, has made some cu- 

 rious observations on the effects of a cold wet 

 season in diminishing the normal growth of trees. 

 He found on careful measurement that, comparing 

 1879 with 1878, eleven deciduous trees — not oaks 

 — made on an average 41 per cent, less growth in 

 last year than in the year before. Of seventeen 

 pine trees, the average deficiency was 20 per cent., 

 so that heat appears to have more to do with the 

 making of wood than moisture has. It is strange 

 that the growth of the oak, which drops its leaves, 

 seems less dependent on heat than that of the pine, 

 which we usually associate with very cold regions. 



Absorption of Water by Roots. — Prof. 

 Goodall in a recent lecture, say^: " Aquatic plants 

 absorb water through the surface of all sub- 

 merged parts. Plants fixed in the soil absorb 

 water through the superficial tissues of the young- 

 est roots ; and chiefly through root-hairs. Leaves 

 of such plants absorb no moisture, even when wet 

 by rain. When a plant is torn roughly from the 

 soil, nearly all these root-hairs (which are delicate, 

 elongated cells, thickly clothing a short portion of 

 the youngest roots just behind the root tip), are 

 left behind, and the power of the plant to absorb 

 water is ended. The idea that the tip or spongiole 

 absorbs water has been exploded by experiments, 

 as also the idea that when these root-hairs, or the 

 portions of the root which bear them, are torn off, 

 water is absorbed by the wounded part. The whole 

 work (except in the case of coniferous trees, which 

 have no root-hairs, and absorb water by the newer 

 parts of the root, but never by the tip) of forcing 

 water into the plant, against a pressure of 3 to 5 

 atmospheres, is done by these minute and delicate 

 root-hairs. 



Heliotrofism in Sun-flowers. — Mr. Thomas 

 Meehan exhibited flowers of Helianthus mollis, 

 and remarked on the popular fallacy of sun-flow- 

 ers turning with the sun. The original " sun- 

 flower " connected with the Ovidian stories of Cly- 

 tie and Phcebus, was the European Heliotrope, and 

 even that did not turn with the sun in the modern 

 popular sense. It simply grew where the sun 

 loved to shine, and the plant did not flower till the 



