ii6 



Garden and Forest. 



[March 6, 1889. 



flowers are produced in panicles often two feet in lengtli, of a 

 pleasing ivory-white color. They may be seen at their best 

 about the second week in September, at which time the foliage 

 is hidden by the flowers, which are followed by awned seeds 

 with a reddish tint, and last luitil severe frost sets in. Although 

 introduced in 1796, C. paniculata is by no means common in 

 this country, owing to the difficulty of obtaining good seed, 

 it being usually killed by frost before it is sufficiently matured 

 to germinate. 



Shortia galacifolia. — This interesting plant has proved per- 

 fectly hardy in New Jersey. When it has the protection of a 

 cool house in winter it thrives better, however. The flowers 

 are produced earlier, and lastseveral weeks in good condition. 

 Established plants flowerfreely. Wehaveone inafour-inch pot 

 with twenty-four buds, some of which are already expanded. 

 Those who wish to cultivate this plant should, if possible, get 

 established plants ; collected ones are uncertain. Shortia 

 galacifolia succeeds well in a soil composed of two parts peat 

 and one of loam. It requires plenty of moisture at all times. 

 We have also found that a half shady spot, such as a cool 

 frame, is best suited to the plant in summer, as the sunlight is 

 apt to scorch the young foliage. 



Strong Vitality of Crocus Flowers.— In the latter part of No- 

 vember about fifty bulbs of a species of Crocus, probably C. 

 sativus or C. speciosiis, were received from a correspondent in 

 Turkey. They came by mail, packed in dry cotton wool, and 

 were, to all appearances, lifeless, but evidently belonging to 

 the autumn-flowering section of the genus, as there were dried 

 flowers of a purplish color attached to the bulbs. However, 

 it was decided to plant them, and, shortly after this was done, 

 signs of growth were visil)le in the production of leaves and 

 the thickening of the leaf-sheath of the membrane. This 

 thickening was thought to indicate the appearance of more 

 blooms, when we were surprised to find that seed-pods and 

 perfect seeds were formed, and this after the bulbs had 

 traveled thousands of miles between the time of flowering 

 and subsequent continuation of growth. ^^ ^ ^ 



Passaic, N.J. E. O. Orpet. 



Sowing Acorns. — It is the popular belief that acorns and nuts 

 must either be sown in the fall or kept in earth for spring 

 sowing ; but practice has shown that this is not essential. In- 

 deed, walnuts very often fail entirely when sown in the fall. 

 There is no objection to the preservation of such seeds in 

 earth for sowing in spring, but anyone who has not done this 

 may safely sow in April, if the seeds have not been allowed to 

 become dry. A damp cellar, such as many nurserymen use 

 for heeling in plants in winter will suit admirably. If the 

 acorns and nuts have lost nothing in weight by drying since 

 they were collected, they may be sown with assurance of suc- 

 cess. Joseph Meehan. 



Germantown, Pa. 



Principles of Physiological Botany, as Applied to 

 Horticulture and Forestry. 



X. — A Few of the Nitrogenous Compounds formed within the 



Plant. 



T N the previous papers of this series we have followed the 

 ■*■ course of inorganic materials into the plant, and we have 

 investigated some of the products resulting from the chemical 

 processes which go on in the assimilating and the elaborafing 

 cells. Thus far our attention has been confined to the cell- 

 wall substance, the starches, the si-igars, the acids, the fats, 

 and the like, all of these being products which are devoid of 

 nitrogen. The way is now open for a brief consideration of 

 certain groups of substances, of which nitrogen is an essential 

 constituent. 



The element nitrogen enters the plant in some combination, 

 as we have already seen, and its destination is the formation 

 of what are known as albuminoidal matters, or proteids. The 

 living matter in plants and animals alike, consists essentially 

 of various proportions of these albuminoidal substances, in 

 which, for tiie time, certain special activities are manifested. 



When the living matter, with its associated albuminoidal 

 substances, is subject to proximate analysis (that is, an an- 

 alysis which stops just short of resolving it into its ultijiiate 

 constituents), it is easy to discriminate between closely allied 

 compounds which are almost the exact equivalents of the 

 albuminoids found in the animal kingdom. In fact, they are 

 commonly called vegetable albumin, vegetable casein, and 

 vegetable fibrin, to distinguish them from their allies in the 



animal kingdom. This nomenclature, although correct in its 

 main features, is not suificiently exact for the needs of modern 

 science, and hence other terms, more precise and significant, 

 have been bestowed upon most of them. For our purpose, 

 however, it is sufficient to regard them as a whole, and to 

 keep in mind the important facts regarding their bearing upon 

 the work in the plant. First of all, then, it must be observed 

 that the chemical changes which take place in the living matter 

 of the plant, by which nitrogenous compounds are formed, 

 are akin to what has been called dissociation. In a general 

 way it may be said that the protoplasm itself contributes of its 

 own substance to form these other products, but the pro- 

 cesses of repair in a healthy cell keep pace with the destruc- 

 tive changes. 



By what is recognized as an oxidizing process, or a sort of 

 "fermentative" process (to use the term of one of the most 

 recent and careful investigators of this subject), substances 

 known as amides are formed from the albiuninoids of the 

 plant, and these may give rise to very complex combinations, 

 some of which are immediately broken down, while others 

 are maintained as distinct compounds in certain cells. A few 

 of these compounds are occasionally broken down until their 

 products appear as compound ammonias of a volatile char- 

 acter. Such are sometimes found in a few plants at the time 

 of flowering. 



In the form of these compound ammonias a little of the 

 combined nitrogen of the plant may escape as a sort of excre- 

 tion, but, aside from this, which is very special and limited, 

 there is no true excretory process answering in the slightest 

 degree to the elimination of urea in animals. From what we 

 know of the very close similarity between animals and plants 

 in their physiological relations, it is highly probable that some 

 excretory process may yet be made out clearly. The jjehavior 

 of a peculiar substance known as asi>aragin has led some in- 

 vestigators to look in this direction for a solution of the prob- 

 lem, but as yet there has been no conclusive evidence that this 

 product plays such a part, or even assists, in such a way in 

 the vegetable economy. 



Among the more complex nitrogen compounds of the plant 

 few possess greater interest from the point of view of useful 

 applications than the so-called alkaloids. For the most part 

 these occur in small amount, and, as a rule, are characteristic' 

 of certain plants. Thus alkaloids, of which we may take 

 Quinina as the type, are characteristic of the Cinchonas; Mor- 

 phina and its allies are found in the Poppies; Atropina occurs 

 in Belladonna. In the plants closely allied to these there 

 may be kindred but not identical alkaloids, so that it is at 

 present impossible to assert beforehand, from the affinities of 

 a plant, wliether or not it possesses alkaloids of a certain 

 character. In fact there are many indications that closel\- 

 related alkaloids may occur in plants which belong to widely 

 separated orders, a good example of this being afforded by the 

 active alkaloid of Coffee, Tea and the like. 



A practical point of some importance is to be here noted — 

 namely, that, by judicious selection, the amount of an alka- 

 loid characteristic of a given plant may be measurably 

 increased. This is a consideration of much greater signifi- 

 cance to cultivators in tropical and the warmer parts of sub- 

 tropical countries than to residents of temperate climates, 

 since, under those skies, the amount of the alkaloids is gen- 

 erally larger than in cooler regions. 



A curious fact of no practical importance may be men- 

 tioned at this point — namely, that it is possible for one to 

 kill an alkaloid-producing plant by the very alkaloid which it 

 yields. For instance, by watering the soil with a solution of 

 morpliina, it is possible to destroy the Poppy. 



Another interesting group of nitrogenous bodies found in 

 plarits comprises the unorganized ferments. These bodies 

 have the extraordinary faculty of causing changes in other 

 substances, without always, if indeed at all, imdergoing change 

 themselves. Thus an unorganized ferment, known as dias- 

 tase, has the power of converting starch into soluble sub- 

 stances very readily utilized by the living matter of the plant. 

 There are other ferments which are inert as regards starch, 

 but act efficiently upon nitrogenous substances. The best 

 cases of this class are met with in the so-called insectivorous 

 plants and in the fruits of the Papaw, a tropical plant. In these 

 and a few other plants acfive principles akin to the digestive 

 ferments of the animal world are found in surprising amount. 

 That which is characteristic of the insectivorous plants is 

 related to if not identical with the ferment known as pepsin, 

 while the Papaw fruit yields one more closely resembling 

 those which can act in an alkaline fluid. There is good rea- 

 son for the belief that these plants are not anomalous, except 

 in the relatively large amount of the ferment which they 



