486 The American Naturalist. [May, 
are many other instances of the appearance at about the same time in 
different locations and from distinct strains of seed, of a variation pre- 
viously unknown to the species, and generally each sport retains the 
general character of the strain from which it sprang, having only the 
new variation in common. 
I have annually, for the past ten years, carefully looked over from 
1000 to 2000 acres of cucumbers, and a proportionate area of other 
vegetables all grown for seed, my object being to note any impurities 
or tendencies to variation in the stock, and again and again I have 
found some particular variation, often an undesirable one which I had 
never seen before, but of which I would find many repetitions during 
that and the succeeding one or two seasons, after which they would 
often disappear and give place to some new and equally distinct type. 
I have often noticed that any particular style of sport common to the 
season was common to all varieties of the species on which it occurred. 
I offer no theory in explanation and make no comments, but simply put 
on record my observations. 
Wit. W. Tracy. 
Some Features of the Native Vegetation of Nebraska.— 
The natural vegetation of Nebraska is emphatically that of the Great 
Plains, and thus differs much from that of the forests to the eastward, 
and the mountains lying westward. To say that the eastern botanist 
notes the absence of many familiar plants signifies nothing, since this 
must always be the case in comparing the flora of one region with that 
of another. The flora of the plains differsin many things from that of 
New York and New England, but the eastern man must not unduly 
magnify the importance to be attached to the fact that he does not find 
here many of the plants he knew in his boyhood days. The plains 
have their own plants which will eventually be as dear to the men and 
women who gathered them in childhood, as are the old favorites to the 
New Englander transplanted to the west. 
A study of the vegetation of Nebraska begun somewhat more than a 
decade ago, soon showed that it possessed some remarkably interesting 
features, which my owa annual botanizing trips, and the more extended 
explorations by the “ Botanical Seminar” have brought out in stronger 
light. The native plants of the State are very largely immigrants 
from surrounding regions. By far the greater number have come from 
the prairies and forests lying immediately on the east and southeast, 
creeping up the rivers and streams, or in case of herbaceous plants, 
blowing overland with a disregard for the water-courses, Thus of the 
