3IO 



THE GARDENERS' MONTHLY 



[October, 



the mistake a natural one. The plant was intro- 

 duced to America by Mr. Thomas Hogg in one 

 case, and also by the Japanese during the 

 Centennial in Philadelphia. 

 The writer has a plant left 

 by the Japanese, and one shoot 

 is in flower simultaneously with 

 the reading of this note of Mr. 

 Nicholson's, and proves that he 

 is right in the case of this stock, 

 as well as in that inti'oduced by 

 Mr. Hogg. It might be called 

 a banded bullrush. 



A Monstrous Lilium aura- 

 TUM. — Mr. Louis Bohmer sends 

 us from Japan a singular sport 

 of Lilium auratum, from which 

 we have taken a single flower 

 for illustration. It will very 

 much interest morphological 

 botanists, while as a horticul- 

 tural curiosity it will be gener- 

 ally admired. 



Mysteries of Evolution. — 

 Principal Dawson, in his Min- 

 neapolis address, makes a tem- 

 perate, but powerful protest 

 against modern views of evolu- 

 tion. He goes to the beginning 

 and comes toward us, while 

 those whom he antagonizes 

 start from the other end. He 

 contends that geology shows 

 in its earliest palaeontological 

 remains as perfect development 

 in some of the earliest known 

 creatures as there is at the 

 present time, and that so far as 

 research has yet been success- 

 ful there are no known forms 

 from which these beings could 

 have sprung. In other lectures 

 Dr. Dawson has shown that the 

 oldest human crania yet dis- 

 covered show as great a state 

 of human development as could 

 be gathered from a knowledge 

 of any human skull of to-day ; 

 and again he contends that 

 some of the earliest fossil plants 

 have ^almost their exact counterparts in existing 

 species, and that the supposed law of perpetual 

 change is^controverted by these instances. It is 



Lilium auratum. 



very difficult to eject Dr. Dawson from this chosen 

 field. Philosophy might desire to ask him if he 

 believes a pair of'each species were created as 

 adults, and then turned loose to 

 increase ¥nd multiply^ anH 

 whether in view of the carnivor- 

 ous habits of many of them, 

 numbers would not be obliter- 

 ated before the species were 

 barely born ; or, if a number of 

 individuals of one species were 

 to come suddenly into existence 

 as adults, whether geological 

 science has indicated the prob- 

 ability of any law existing at 

 that time by which such an 

 event might be brought about? 

 From the mere scientific 

 standpoint, and aside from reve- 

 lation, Principal Dawson could 

 at best but answer, that he did 

 not know. But the evolutionist 

 who starts from the modern 

 end, points to the facts about 

 him and shows that there is 

 change now, and that what 

 would surely be regarded as 

 species, did we not know their 

 origin, have been derived from 

 a common stock, and that these 

 variations once introduced, have 

 all the powers of permanent re- 

 production which the best 

 recognized species have. In 

 this column it is the object 

 merely to indicate the lines of 

 scientific progress. As it seems 

 to us, scientists oi the Dawson 

 school simply say, we cannot 

 say how, looking at the dawn 

 of hfe, species first came to ex- 

 ist ; while the evolutionist says 

 that, looking at the present day, 

 we can. — IndepeJident. 



Pulpit Horticulture and 



Botany Those who take a 



deep interest in Horticulture 

 and the Natural Sciences, must 

 have often smiled at pulpit ef- 

 forts to illustrate remarks by 

 references to such studies. The whole sermon is 

 rendered ridiculous by the speaker evidently not 

 knowing what he is talking about. It is rare, 



