j 8 botanical gazette. [January, 



a farmer about fifty years of age, while dragging some potato ground 

 upon bottom land, about two weeks ago, discovered one of the fleshy 

 roots of this plant, and supposing it to be an artichoke, ate of it and gave 

 a portion to each of his two sons. He soon began to feel queer or 

 " funny," as he expressed it, and went to the house, where he was taken 

 with a spasm, followed by two or three others, when be b< ame uncon- 

 scious, and within an hour, before a physician could be summoned from 

 the village, two miles distant, he was dead. The children had probably 

 eaten less of the root, and, being given an emetic, recovered. The plant 

 is very common in the state, and the roots are .-o pleasant to the taste as 

 to make it particularly dangerous. I may add that I ate a piece of the root 

 of the size of a filbert with little or no unpleasant effect.-A. A. Orozier, 



Ames, Iowa. 



Floral eccentricities.-The artificial conditions which attend the 

 growth of many cultivated plants sometimes induce very erratic develop- 

 ment, especially in the organs of reproduction. These irregularities 

 often persist in certain species and varieties, and may be regarded as 

 vegetable vices which no human management can overcome. As an ex- 

 ample, we may take the well-known habit of one of our common but 

 beautiful June roses of sending out a cluster of buds from the center of 

 its blossoms, and in rare cases to repeat the malformation in the second- 

 ary serie?. . 



Among the floral peculiarities that attracted mv attention during 

 ihe past summer was the branching of the scape of a double white tulip 

 This forked about midway between the bulb and flower, and each brancn 

 bore an unusually large and symmetrically double blossom. 



Another odditv was to be seen in an adjoining bulb bed. A plant of 

 Crown Imperial (Fritillaria) had been transplanted late the previous au- 

 tumn, and had evidently not yet recovered from the eflfi of removal. 

 The root leaves developed finelv. and the flower stalk grew about twelve 

 inches and sent out the usual terminal cluster of leaves, beneath wfticn 

 the blossoms were represented solely by a dense fringe of cream white 



stamens without floral envelopes of any sort, or any organs resembling 



pistils or ovaries. The anthers were unusually large and fid of pollen, 

 and the plant was for many days a unique object and excited much in- 

 terest. .. 

 A rather singular ease of doubling in the common Portulaca grandi- 

 flora also came to my notice. Only the self sown, single varieties were 

 growing in the garden, and the blossom in question was on a plant whicn, 

 aside from this specimen, bore only normal blossoms. This one how- 

 ever, had in its center a monopetatous corolla like growth, the peculiarity 

 of which lay in the fact that it was the instil which was thn ransformed, 

 while the full complement of -tamens encircled it. 



I should like to inquire if it is not rather rare to find Cuscuta glom- 

 erata parasitic on plants outside of the Compositse? During the past 

 year I have for the tirst time observed it on the poke-wa I. The latter 

 was in each instance apparently much reduced in size and vigor by its 

 unusual attendant, but the dodder seeme 1 t-> find in i new host all the 

 .• .aditions for luxuriant growth. -Mary E. MtlRTFEWT, K<rk* < H'J. 



