Notes and Gleanings, 179 



Distorted Pink Stem. — A curious instance of distorted growth occurring 

 in a plant of the Carnation of the Perpetual variety, was lately handed us by Mr. 

 Asa Kingsbury, of Foxboro', Mass., from the green-house of Mr. James Keyes. 

 At first sight, it suggested the wound caused by some insect sting, but dissection 

 disproved that. The fungus theory being the present favorite and fashionable 

 whim to account for vegetable diseases, regard was had to it to ascertain what 

 connection that might have. But fungi and insects failing, the resolution of the 

 matter was referred to the similar curious growth of asparagus stalks, butter-cup 

 stems, and the flattened peduncles of dandelions, dahlias, etc. In these, and 

 similar cases, the beginning of the trouble is traceable to the struggle of several 

 superfluous buds, side by side, in endeavoring to develop and grow where only 

 one should do so normally and orderly. 



It is a well-known fact in vegetable physiology, that the leaves are set upon 

 the main stalk in some regular and undeviating (or nearly so) order, by which 

 symmetry, and a fair chance to do all that is required of them, can be secured. 

 If by any accident or exciting cause this course is disturbed, the subsequent 

 growth follows to the end this same direction. In the present instance, the leaf 

 succeeding to the last regularly posited leaf, was slightly bent to the right from 

 its very first birth ; and its base, it is to be observed, became, in consequence of 

 some excess of parenchymatous or tissue-matter, liable to adhesive growth to 

 the back of the main stem. Every succeeding leaf, by this primary aberration, 

 was insensibly drawn in the same direction, instead of being properly distributed, 

 over the rest of the circumference of the stem. The tissue, too, thus disturbed, 

 became more spongy and succulent, and offered a ready opportunity for it to ad- 

 here to that of the bases of the succeeding foliage, and each new edge to ingraft 

 itself into an inwrapping sheath, allowing but a portion of the rest of the leaves 

 to have any individual expansion, twenty or more leaves uniting into one plate 

 by the adherent edges of their bases. The cluster of flower buds followed more 

 or less this abnornal and eccentric twist, until by this extraordinary effort to sus- 

 tain themselves under restraint, the pith of the main stalk, and the bark bound 

 by the ever-increasing folds of leaf-bases, became also spongy and porous, and 

 swelled into a gouty or vesicular figure, surmounted by a flower sessile on its 

 top, and also by its accompanying buds crowded to one side, but with their 

 flower-stalks less shortened or curtailed. 



To compensate, in some measure, for this departure from the usual correct 

 behavior of our carnation, which should be " the very pink of propriety," the 

 oddity of the arrangement should be considered ; the effort to present the indi- 

 vidual leaf-growth being reduced to the prominence of the mid-rib, suggested to 

 every eye a semblance to some green worm or larva, such as feeds in summer 

 on our potato vines, grape leaves, or other dainty and succulent plant. But as 

 an additional ornament to the green-house, this pecuhar variety would be rejected 

 at once as no improvement on Nature. J- L. R. 



Soil for Chestnut Trees. — " W. C. F.," in Hearth and Home, thinks it 

 important to select a well-drained soil for the chestnut. They do not flourish 

 on a retentive clay subsoil. 



