BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 133 
an explanation, it certainly will answer to reason from the opposite direction, 
viz: that a quick response of a wild plant to cultivation, in changes that are 
favorable to man’s desires, but not especially beneficial to the plant, is indicative that 
the supposed wild plant is really feral—especially if such changes are of a na- 
ture beneficial to man, yet unfavorable to the plant. Illustrations of this lat- 
ter proposition seem quite numerous, as, for a general rule in vegetable plants, 
improvement in form and quality is usually coincident with a lessened ability 
of the plant to take care of itself, and the highly improved forms seem inca- 
pable of becoming feral. 
I will say no more, however, as these and allied matters are yet under in- 
vestigation, but there is indeed a need of an agricultural botany, to be studied 
under the domination of the evolutionary idea of man as a factor in variation. 
—E. Lewis Srurrevant. 
Keenness of Observation.—A fter studying botany for three weeks, it was 
three days more before a single one of the Freshman class of Michigan Agri- 
cultural College discovered that the central odd leaflet at the tip of the midrib 
of a leaf of the mountain ash was usually symmetrical, although they soon dis- 
covered that the side leaflets were fullest on the lower edge. ; 
Last year, while studying leaves, it was two days before any megpe of the 
Freshman class discovered that the leaf of the common barberry had two joints 
that the anthers are much in advance of the styles; about one in fifteen sc 
Covered that although the leaves were opposite, a bud usually appears only in 
the axil of one of each pair of those of the Sweet William (Lychnis). Above 
this bud is a slight canal, somewhat like that on the cornstalk near and above 
an ear of corn.—W. J. Beat, Agricultural College, Lansing, Mich. 
—— 
EDITORIAL NOTES 
A LABORATORY for researches on bacteria has been established at Munich. 
J. C. Gréxewneen, of the Botanic Garden of Amsterdam, died in June at 
the age of 73 years. 
_ _ Pror. J. H.R. Gorprenrt, the phytopaleontologist, lately died at Breslau 
im his eighty-fourth year. 
: OBERLIN CotuEGE has secured the herbarium of Dr. Beardslee, of Paines- 
Ville, Ohio, containing about 3000 species. 
A SECOND EprT1oN of Prof. W. J. Beal’s lecture on the new botany has 
been issued by Chas. H. Marot, Philadelphia. 
2 
