BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 29: 
Zinnia grandiflora, Nutt.—In the latter part of July last, while botaniz- 
ing in the vicinity of Pueblo, Colorado, I found this species of Zinnia in great 
abundance, and was especially struck with its singular and, to me, novel method 
for the dispersion of its seeds. The plants, though rarely more than four or five 
inches in height, were very showy, because of the abundance of their bright yel- 
low flowers, large for the size of the plants. When I came to examine them 
somewhat closely I found that much of their conspicuousness was due to the fact 
that the ray-flowers, even of the oldest heads, though they had become dry and 
rigid, had lost but little of their original color. Further observation revealed 
the fact that the rays are persistent even until after the akenes are fully ripened. 
The heads then fall or are detached entire from their peduncles, and the thin, 
light, stiff rays, now answering for wings, they are carried away by the wind to 
great distances from the parent plant. By this method the seeds are dispersed 
for the growth of another year. 
I record the fact as one of great interest. I have never seen the like artifice 
employed by any other plant for the dissemination of its seeds, nor seen such a 
one noticed by any writer. 
I met the plant soon after in New Mexico, where it seemed equally abund- 
ant. It is well figured and described in Dr. Torrey’s botanical contribution to 
Emory’s “Notes of a Military Reconnoissance,” p. 144.—Davip F. Day, Buf- 
a8 : 
falo, N. 
Notes from the New bis mciiea = Experiment Station. — In 
chapter xi, “Animals and Plan r Domestication,” Darwin says that it is. 
worth mentioning that he “ pat Ran pet pict sweet pea (Lathyrus odoratus) 
with pollen from the light-colored Painted Lady. Seedlings raised from one and 
the same pod were not intermediate in aise but perfectly resembled both 
parents.” I can offer some parallel illustrations : 
Kernels of Waushakem flint corn, exposed last year to spl fost? from 
Minnesota ie a ie oer yielded ears of —. Wa ushake and per- 
eh corn without intermediates. Agua; hybrid Sccttiels from flint and 
sweet crosses have flint and sweet ears, without any intermediates, and flint and 
dent crossed kernels ears of flint and dent corn without any intermediates. Pop. 
corn mi ata produced sweet corn, flint corn and pop corn ears, but no 
intermedia 
Voatie sweet and wrinkled pie smooth and wrinkled peas were found 
in the same pod, but no intermediates. In crossing a smooth pea with pollen 
of the sugar pea, the pod was of the garden type, the seed of the sugar type. 
Blue seed produced both blue and cream-colored peas, and cream-colored 
seed produced, occasionally, blue seed—excellent evidence in favor of the view 
that natural cross ossing occasionally takes place. 
William the First, a smooth pea, planted late, but the pods harvested in a 
ripe condition, yielded wrinkled peas for crop.—E, Lewis ise Director. 
