3 12 The Botanical Gazette. [November, 



connection with the root. I bought the place on which the tree was, 

 in 1885. The tree has borne and ripened oranges every year till 1890. 

 In 1889 a sprout came up from the root. This proved to be a Chinese 

 lemon on which the orange had been grafted. I was not here in 1889. 

 When I arrived in the fall of 1890 I saw that shoots from the or- 

 ange had been sent out the preceding spring but they had withered and 

 died. The Chinese lemon was very thrifty and full of fruit. It evi- 

 dently had taken the sap. The struggle was over and the orange was 

 dead. I send you the whole of it with a part of the Chinese lemon 

 shoot. I think it should be preserved, as it is proof positive of the 

 circulation of sap through the heart-wood. It lived, blossomed and 

 bore fruit every year for at least seven years, when there was no con- 

 nection between the tree and the root, except the heart-wood."— W. 

 Whitman Bailey, Brown University. 



HelmntliHs mollis.— Plants which I collected near Odin, Illinois, 

 years ago, and plants from Tennesseee, sent by my friend, Dr. Gattin 

 ger, were blooming in my garden the past year. The Tennessee plants 

 flower two weeks before the others, have involucral bracts double the 

 length, and the leaves one-fourth broader, though no longer. The 

 leaves of the Illinois plants are so thick that the nerves can scarcely 

 be seen; the nerves of the other are strongly visible, and there are 

 some other differences. 



In these days variations of this character are scarcely worth special 

 note. We find similar variations with any plant in areas of but a few 

 acres in extent if carefully looked for. 



In the Illinois plants I have noted that all the first flowers faced the 

 southeast, the first day of opening. This season they all faced the 

 northwest. I might settle the whole story by merely saying, " some- 

 thing in the environment must have influenced all these variations;" 

 but to my mmd the term « environment," so frequently used in con- 

 nection with similar phenomena, is utterly meaningless. It is, how- 

 ever, clear that there are often separate lines of variation in widely 

 separated localities. Sometimes I think we might solve the problem 

 sooner if we were not so easily satisfied with the word "environment." 

 Thomas Meehan, Germantown, Philadelphia. 



Further notes on the mutilation of flowers bv insects.- In the Ga- 

 zette tor 1888, p. 39 , I s t a te that Bombus Pennsylvania slits the cor- 

 olla tube to obtain the nectar from Phvsostegia Virginiana and ATerten- 

 Z'J "f ""'"', l here »" a mistake made in copying the name of the 



VhtTn r ° m ° n ? nal n ° teS; H shouId read Xyhcopa virginica, the 

 Virginia carpenter bee. Since the above mentioned note was pub- 



