ee ee ee ee eee ee el 
1888. | BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 19 
with considerable care, but the entrance of the single seed through sur- 
face soil was not impossible. At the same time six samples of sandy soil 
low T ey were exposed in earthen pots, covered with panes of glass, 
and kept moist. The samples from the surface became covered with the 
dey s and weeds of the locality, and those from oe sexolapey 
nothing. A. A, CROZIER. 
Department of Agriculture, Washington, DB 
Mr. Pringle in Mexico. 
_ All who read the GAZETTE will be glad to learn aL the safe return to 
his Vermont home of Mr. C. G. Pri ngle. He has had a “hard struggle 
stamp of the collec 
n regard to ee grasses I wish tosay pet oop ele the large num- 
ber of epecies collected in Mexico in.recent years, bot th by Mr. Pringle 
t re) 
prisingly liege. Of the forty-five sheets of grasses of the present collec- 
tion, received by me, there are thirty-five species new to Mr. Pringle 
Plant. Bk ican, and among these twelve are probably 2 ew species 0 
varieti F. Lamson SCRIBNER- 
Washington; D. C. 
Is the strawberry poisonous ?* 
The editorial in the November number of the GAZETTE in regard to 
plant poisoning leads me to make the present record of an interesting 
case which has come under my personal observation. A friend and neigh- 
they are without suffering serious consequences. As a boy, he was ac- 
customed to the use of strawberries without katie injury; but when 
bout fourteen years of age he was taken violently and suddenly il, ac- 
companied by an irritating cutaneous rash, from. sisi modera’ tely 0 of 
be carried from the field to the house. From this time to the present, a 
period of Some sixty years, he has been unable to eat even a single straw- 
ner evere recurrence of the difficulty. On 
one occasion, some ten years ¢ after - the first attack, hoping that he might 
have outgrown the trouble, he indulged in eating a lew npaevies at a tea 
party, but was taken illso suddenly that he was as obliged to leave the table 
and retire to his room, where he was sick in bed for a day or two after- 
ar ta first symptom of an attack is the appearance ce of the burnin: 
and ifchi ~Hiypmcnane’ rash, which always begins behind the ears ane 
spreads i idly over the body; in the instance last mentioned, covering 
whole aay within an hour. Of course, he has long sin nce learned to 
avoid strawbecries as he would a dangerous plague; but he is = suscept- 
ible tothe poisonous influence that the mere re passing he w: 
near oo at stand where strawberries hangecetel for sale is Bal at to 
taneous rash. 
slight development of the cu 
Weroot te ee Shen ae 
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