1895. ] Briefer Articles. 503 
sixteen seeds were scattered toward the wind, the nearest at two 
inches, and with twelve between thirty-five and forty-three inches; 
and thirty went with the wind from eight to forty-seven inches away. 
Later the nearest were a few at four inches and more than sixty were 
scattered between twenty-three and thirty-six inches. Other observa- 
tions taken at the same time on seeds of verbascum, dipsacus, and 
polanisia while less definite were nevertheless of the same general 
significance. Later observations on a new cenothera plant thirty inches 
high and with lowest pods eleven inches from the ground, extending 
over a longer period and with stronger winds, showed at one time the 
nearest seed alone at twenty-two and one-half inches from the plant 
stem, and upwards of 160 scattered over the sheet, being very numer- 
ous at the extreme limit, thirteen feet. At another time they were 
found in large numbers from four feet to the extreme limit. 
During the same period observations upon Datura Stramonium with 
its erect prickly capsules and large pitted seeds gave the following re- 
sults: one seed at five feet, one at four, and one at four and one-half; 
later one at one foot, twenty-two from two and one-half to seven and 
one-halt feet; still later, fourteen scattered from twenty inches to ten 
feet, with perhaps the majority at about six feet. This plant was 
forty-four inches high with its lowest pods twenty-seven inches from 
the ground. 
Thus, this modification is seen to be very effective. Its importance 
is realized when one notes that in the Cayuga flora seventy-five genera 
are so disseminated. ‘These genera are scattered through widely sep- 
arated families from the Juncacee to the Lobeliacee being especially 
rt 
more other modifications with similar effects occur; upright heads, the 
achenes often provided with embracing chaff, drooping pods opening 
only at the base, and persistent ascending calyx and bracts opening 
only upward.—MarGarRET FursMAN BoyNnTON. 
Some western weeds, and alien weeds in the west.—A paper by 
Prof. L. H. Pammel, in a volume of the Proc. Iowa Acad. Sci., leads 
me to offer a few remarks. Prof. Pammel discusses in detail the dis- 
tribution of certain weeds, and points out how little has been done to 
record the spread of introduced plants in this country. Two of the 
Species thus discussed are Solanum rostratum and S. Carolinense. The 
latter species is not cited from Colorado or New Mexico, nor had 
I ever seen it in these regions, until this year I gathered it in 
an orchard at Albuquerque, N. M. The case of .S. rostratum is widely 
