318 General Notes. [ May, 
circumstances become leaves.” “The plant * * * for repro- 
ductive purposes has nettles, thorns, elastic films, as in the seed 
vessels of the squirting cucumber.” “If the well-known sensi- 
tive plant be touched never so lightly, its flowers and leaves 
close.” “The ‘resurrection plant,’ generally known as the Rose 
of Jericho * * * * to all appearance a mass of dry, dead vege- 
table fibre * * * when sufficient moisture is applied it revives, 
S leaves expand, it is clothed in new verdure, and as its blossoms 
old, the reanimated plant is clothed in all its former gag a 
3 “When night approaches* flowers close their petals * 
some plants, however, only flower at night. The beautiful aioe 
a species of wild lily, only blossom when the moon is out.” The 
small leaflets of Desmodium gyrans “ move up and down in alter- 
nate jerks, at the rate of sixty a minute. * * * This motion is 
continued during all the seasons of the year, and during the 
whole life-time of the plant.” 
For alk but one of chess wonders the authority cited is “ Wor 
ders of the Vegetable World, by Schele DeVere.” This book 
we believe to be a second edition of one entitled A Salad for the 
Solitary, which was noticed in the American Fournal of Science 
and the Arts a good many years ago. Tt was then remarked that 
“Ignorance is not a sin per se, its heinousness depends on the use 
that is made of it.” The following wonders, like that of the 
blooming of the Yuccas in moonlight, are more original, or at 
least more modern. In Darlingtonia cali tfornica “beautiful red 
wattles within the brim of its pitcher offer irresistible attractions 
to insects, especially to flies. These alight first upon the ‘ wat- 
tles,’ then flying upward strike the pitcher, and owing to the 
peculiar twist of its walls falls to the bottom of the receptacle, 
where many spores spouses fly has, too late, found its sepul- 
chre.” Why too la 
“ Mrs. Treat has ‘audi the habits of this plant (bladder wort, 
Utricularia neglecta), and learned that it allures rege by 
means of its bright flowers and leaves glistening with 
ome sentences are wondrous in other ways: e. “For the 
removal of obstacles the plant has two courses, to disintegrate 
the object opposed to its progress, absorbing it if it be a suitable 
nutritive element, as are all animal and vegetable substances, and 
some minerals, or pass around it; or still again, as in extreme 
cases, to bury it up in its own substance, as are stones, bayonets, 
nails and the like.” 
Now a popular article, when it touches upon subjects of which 
the writer knows little or nothing, should be judged fi orbearingly 
when it goes wildly astray. In an_ ordinary magazine it “would 
matter little, but in the pages of the AMERICAN NATURALIST 
these statements gain an importance and a currency which is not 
altogther pleasant. The undersigned does his a in my 
= attention to the matter—Asa Gray 
