16 H. M. Neisler on the Common Cane. 
ularly supposed to flower and fruit. This, however, is but a 
supposition. ; 
hen the flowering once begins, it takes place in every plant in 
the cane-brake at the same time, whatever may be its age, its pu- 
berty depending not on the actual age of the cane itself, but upon 
the time that has elapsed since the germination of the seed from 
which it has either directly or indirectly sprung. When the time 
comes, it flowers, whether it has grown up from the ground ten or 
twenty or more years before, or whether it has yet to complete the 
first season’s growth. In the spring of 1857 I found a small field 
from which the cane had been cut the preceding winter. The 
however, no uncommon thing to find individual plants in bloom, 
sometimes several years before the general flowering commences. 
This is, however, only an exception, an occasional precocity 
brought about by some extraordinary cause. 
ith the ripening of the seed ends the life of the plant. It 
then perishes root and branch, as entirely as an annual grass; 
and if the same ground be ever occupied by cane again, it must 
be produced anew from seed. Authors, I judge, have been un- 
aware of this fact, from their describing the plant as fruiting at 
stated periods, or at more or less distant intervals; and this error 
perhaps may have originated from their noting the times of the 
flowering of the plant, as it occurred in different localities; or, if 
observed in the same place, the intervals have been so long be- 
of the soil in which they grow. 
Taylor Co., Geo.,, 1860. 
