628 BOTANY. 
transferred to my garden, in the hope of seeing them blossom. I 
shall duly communicate the result. Some years ago, I gave 
several handsome roots to a Boston friend, for cultivation; but 
I have not heard since regarding them. Some which I have 
kept potted for three years invariably send up every summer 
their large, many-plaited leaves, which remain throughout the 
winter as usual; but the flowers are not produced. It may be 
that, in order to procure the desired result, the pot should not 
be kept housed during winter, but remain plunged in the open 
ground. 
I have thought that perhaps the destruction of the native forest, 
depriving the plant of some element necessary to its perfect devel- 
opment, is the cause of its so seldom or never blossoming here. 
This is a suggestion worthy of note as regards the history of 
other plants as well as of this one. Of late years the Aplectrum 
is, with us, of less luxuriant growth than formerly—HeEnry GILL- 
MAN, Detroit, Michigan. i 
A Yew FLOWERING IN WINTER.—About six weeks ago I nipped 
a small spray off a dwarf yew tree, protruding through the snow, 
in my neighbor’s garden. It was my intention to press it; but 
for immediate convenience it was put in a glass of water, in the 
sitting room, and for some time no more was thought about it. A 
few days ago (Feb. 7), I was astonished to find a number of full 
blown flowers on the spray. These pretty, diminutive objects 
were accompanied with an interesting phenomenon. The anthers 
kept up a little fusillade of explosions, throwing off the yellow 
pollen in tiny clouds. My thumb nail, which happened to be near 
one of the little globular catkins about as large as a canary’s eye; 
was quite yellow with the ejected n I shook off some on 
the slide of a microsco They were, in form, when under a lens 
- of. high power, like ihai ie aut although I had barely 
> touched the slide with my nail, yet the number of pollen grains 
, under the microscope was innumerable. To me, this affair was 
intensely interesting, and a very pleasant episode in a sick room. 
` The entire process can doubtless be repeated by any one, with the 
certainty of success, even in midwinter. The pretty little stran- 
= gers still continue blooming on my table, and impart a cheeriness 
to this unusually bleak St. Valentine’s Day.—S. L., in Monmouth 
D ; ; 
ET 2 Ye ds 
