BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, ETC. 888 



example observed. Mr. Rolfe says that the hybrid has not been 

 previously recorded from the Continent. 



A new botanical journal, the Bulletin de VHerbier Boissier, will 



shortly appear, under the editorship of M. Eugene Autran, Keeper of 

 the Herbarium. 



Mr. F. V. Coville sends us a reprint of his paper " On the 

 Panamint Indians of California, " reprinted from the American 

 Anthropologist of October last. The Panamint tribe, existing only 

 in Inyo county, California, is now nearly exterminated, and Mr. 

 Coville thinks it well to put on record the observations made 

 while he was acting as botanist to the Death Valley Expedition in 

 1891. They are mainly connected with the uses made of the 

 scanty flora of the district, and the following notes on the employ- 

 ment of our common reed may interest some at home. " Phnrr/mites 

 communis furnishes what is known as ' sugar.' In early summer, 

 commonly in June, when the plants have attained nearly their 

 full size, they are cut and dried in the sun. When perfectly brittle 

 the whole plant is ground and the finer portion separated by 

 sifting. This moist sticky flour is moulded by the hands into a 

 thick gum-like mass. It is then set near a fire and roasted until it 

 swells and browns slightly, and in this taffy-like state it is eaten. " 

 . . . Arrows are made from the stems of the reed. The shaft is 

 about Si ft. long. Nearly mature but still green reeds are cut, 

 their leaves removed, and the stems dried and strightened in the 

 hands before a fire. In the straightening process use is often 

 made of a small stone, upon the face of which have been cut two 

 grooves, large enough to admit an arrow-shaft. The stone is 

 heated, and a portion of the crude arrow is laid in one of the 

 grooves until it is hot. The cane is then straightened by holding 

 it crosswise in the teeth and drawing the ends downwards. By 

 repeating this process throughout the whole length of the shaft a 

 marvellously straight arrow is produced." 



In a recent communication to the Smithsonian Institute, Mr. 

 Theodore Holm discusses the morphology of the spikelet of 

 Anthoxanthum odoratum. He maintains that it is comparable with 

 Hierochlo'e in that the two awned glumes, numbers 3 and 4, 

 represent sterile flowers, aud also that the fertile flower is axillary, 

 not terminal, as Doll and subsequently Eichler asserted. He 

 adduces as evidence an abnormal specimen found growing in a 

 recently flooded spot in the Smithsonian Park. In some of the 

 numerous spikelets the true flowering glume, number 5, was awned 

 like the third and fourth, and the three were otherwise similar ; 

 moreover, the fourth sometimes enveloped a pale, though such was 

 never found associated with the third. As regards the lateral 

 portion of the true flower, the rachis was frequently continued 

 beyond it, which settles the point at any rate as regards Mr. Holm's 

 specimens. 



