NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 161 
parts above and below this dead space increase annually in girth. 
The upper portion is now about nine inches in cireumference. There 
are branches above and below the girdled portion ; the lower ones 
growing much the stronger. The upper portion makes only two 
or three inches of growth a year, and the “ needles” are of a 
brighter green than the lower. — Tuomas MEEHAN. 
Dimorpuism 1x Devurzta.— My friend, Edward Tatnall, of Wil- 
mington, Del., once called my attention to the fact that there 
appeared to be two kinds of flowers on the Deutzia gracilis, a 
dwarf shrub now common in gardens. I have a plant now in flow- 
er by forcing in a greenhouse. One class of flowers is of nor- 
mal form, with well developed pistils, and the ten stamens with 
their somewhat petaloid filaments. The other class has the pistils 
scarcely developed ; the anthers seem quite as large and as perfect 
as in the others, but are quite destitute of filaments. I cannot tell 
with certainty whether this is an arrangement for cross-fertiliza- 
tion of separate flowers, because the anthers in the hermaphrodite 
flowers, as we suppose them to be, appear perfect; but when the 
season comes for observing the flowers in the open ground, May 
or June, no doubt the facts could be definitely ascertained. I 
make note of these little things now, so that botanical students 
can observe for themselves when the time comes round. — THOMAS 
MEEHAN. 
CONTRIVANCE IN THE COROLLA or SALVIA INVOLUCRATA. —In 
most Salvias, part of the anther develops into a lever which closes 
‘ the throat, and, when lifted by an insect, causes the pollen to be 
thrown on its back. Some suppose, and with apparent good rea- 
son, that this is to aid in cross-fertilization. In Salvia involucrata, 
the lever arrangements are remarkably well developed, but the 
arched upper lip curves inward, and prevents the anthers from 
acting in the manner above described. It would seem as if the 
plant, after “making” its arrangements for TE 
repented,” and “made” another to contradict it. — THOMA: 
MEEHAN. 
_ Avsrxo Frowers.— During the summer of 1869 I observed, 
in the University campus, quite a number of specimens of Trifo- 
lium pratense, with perfectly white flowers. During the past sea- 
son, although I searched diligently, I was not able to find any white 
flowers of that species, not even = stalks which I believe to 
AMER. NATURALIST, VOL. 
