Clearly preponderate. In most of the species the n 
164 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [auGuUST 
Meehan, Contributions to the life histories of plants, VIII, Proc. Acad. Nat. 
Sci., Phila., 1892, 369-71 (Just 20°: 494). (19) Robertson, Flowers and 
insects, XII, Bot. Gaz. 19: 111, 112. 1894. (20) Loew, Bliitenbiologische 
Floristik, 215 als Cotinus. 
SASSAFRAS OFFICINALE Nees. S. Sassafras (L.) Karst. Hil 
debrand (1) observes that the pistillate and staminate flowers 
each have rudiments of the other set of organs, being what 
Kerner (2) calls pseudo-hermaphrodite. According to Bentham 
and Hooker’s Genera Plantarum, and Gray’s Manual this species 
is dioecious; and that is what I have always regarded it, 
though I paid attention to little except the insect visitors. Chap- 
man, in the Flora of the Southern States, calls it diceciously poly- 
gamous, while Kerner calls it polygamous. My observations were 
made upon trees which I supposed bore only staminate flowers. 
The flowers are greenish yellow, expand about 8 or 9™, and 
are arranged in corymbose clusters, which appear with the leaves. 
There are ‘nine stamens. The three inner ones have at base of 
each a pair of stalked glands which secrete nectar. The nectal 
is therefore fully exposed on a convex surface. 
There are a number of early flowers with convenient neclat, 
some of which on account of their greenish yellow color have 
been supposed to be principally visited by flies. In all — 
Caulophyllum and Sassafras the less specialized bees, Andrenid® 
outnumber the flies. Sassafras is the only one on which the flies 
f nag tends 
to collect in shallow cups, which make it very convenient for te 
Andrenidae, while in Caulophyllum and Sassafras it is see < 
on convex surfaces, which make it more convenient for fies ® 
less convenient for the little bees. However, the expost 
the nectar does not explain why Sassafras shows a preponde oo 
of Diptera, but only why it shows more flies than te . = 
greenish yellow flowers blooming about the same time. During : 
the blooming season, April 19th—May 7th, the flowers are expose? . 
to none of the lower aculeate Hymenoptera, except eight SP only 
of Vespa and Polistes and Priocnemis conicus. The last is 6 oa 
one of these taken on the flowers. It happens to pe pes 
one of the Pompilide flying during the blooming ig 
