290 botanical, GAZETTE* [ November, 



found a variation never before noticed here. Occasionally parties out pick- 

 ing berries have come home and described a new currant to me, a black 

 currant growing with the yellow kind, and tasting the same. This "black" 

 fruited form is not common, only a bush being found here and there? 

 growing side by side with those bearing yellow fruit. There is, I find, an 

 intermediate form bearing red berries. This form is usually very low 

 (one to two and a half feet high) and " scrubby." I also find that the 

 "'black" berries are not black but a very dark red, so dark as to appear 

 black in fully ripe berries. The plants bearing them exhibit no percep- 

 tible difference in size, mode of growth, or color and shape of foliage, and 

 the flower and size of the fruit is the same. The contrast formed by 

 bushes growing side by side bearing berries of these two rich colors is 

 very striking. — F. W. Anderson, Great Fall*, Montana. 



Notes on Minnesota Plants.— Geranium m'lculatum. [n the Mississippi 

 valley form the leaves do not become " blotched with whitish as they 

 grow old." 



Ludwigia paluatris. The manual says : " Pods not tapering at the 

 base." In our form they are tapering. Otherwise the description agrees. 

 I would add that the pods have eight slight wings or ridges, four green, 

 and alternating with them four white. 



Acttea alba and A. rubra. These two plants grow side by side on our 

 bluffs. Being unable to see the least difference between leaves and flower 

 clusters, I marked several spots to study the fruits. In one place I found 

 about a dozen or more plants in one patch hardly a square yard in ex- 

 tent. When I looked for the fruit, part of the clusters of berries wen 

 white, part red. Is it proper to keep these two forms separate as valid 

 species ? 



Cassia Chamsearhta. Our plant has all ten stamens purple, and not 

 ■ four of them yellow." Furthermore, the stem here is not spreading ; 

 the plant stands rather quite erect. 



Mentha Canadensis. I noticed two forms. One form has the stem 

 nearly smooth, with minute re flexed hairs scattered; leaves rather nar- 

 row; flower clusters quite small; flowers pale, only about one-half the 

 size of those in the next form, with green calyx; stamens with red, when 

 old with brown included anthers, reaching barely to the base of the 

 corolla lobes. The second form is more hairy under the hand lens: 

 the leaves are wider; both clusters and flowers themselves are much 

 larger, the latter more colored, with calyx tinged red ; stamens long ex- 

 serted, longer than the style, which is about as long, relative to the flower, 

 a^ in the first form and colored, while in the first form it is almost white. 



Lycopus Europams, var. sinuatus. Our forms have no sterile filaments, 

 so far as I can 6nd,and I have examined a great many. I distinguished three 

 forms, which showed variations that would puzzle the beginner. In one 

 form the leaves are broad and only slightly sinuate ; flower clusters small ; 



