47 



Improvements and variations may be easily made by the in- 

 structor. I preferred to use this production of a freshman stu- 

 dent, for it indicates how far a youthful mind can go, provided 

 it is given a logical start. 



In conclusion let me assure my readers that by the above 

 method in which the student is given a chance to construct some- 

 thing (and all students enjoy making something grow) that that 

 veritable terror of alternation-of-generations in the land plants 

 has lost his Stygian aspect ; in fact the writer personally enjoys 

 nothing more than directing working mentalities as they solve 

 this problem for themselves. 



North Carolina State College, 

 Raleigh, N. C. 



A STRANGE FRUIT 



By H. H. Rusby. 



Jarilla Sesscana (Ramirez) Rusby (Mocinna heterophylla, var. 



Scsscana Ramirez, Analcs Inst. Med. Nac. 1 : 207, t's 3-4 



(1894) ; not Mocinna of Lagasca (1816), of Bentham (1839), 



nor of Cervantes (1885). 



On a day in late summer, ■ while traveling through the moun- 

 tains of the jMexican table-land, near Empalma de Gonzales, one 

 of my peons brought me a fruit of very curious form, calling it 

 Jarilla (meaning "little jar") and stating that it was very good. 

 Since he had separated it from its stem, I mistook its base for its 

 summit, and was for a moment quite confused as to its morphol- 

 ogy. About as large as a small canteloupe, and of an ovoid form, 

 its elongated and thickened accrescent style looks not unlike a 

 peduncle, this impression being strengthened by the appearance 

 at the other end of five elongated and fleshy, curved appendages 

 which could well be five ascending accrescent superior calyx- 

 lobes, were it not for the fact that in reality they are basal, and 

 recurved about the summit of an elongated peduncle, the stump 

 of which I had mistaken for the style. These appendages are 



