488 The American Naturalist. [Ju 



tains descriptions of some interesting plants, e.g., Trifolium t 

 T. lilacinum, T. rostratum, Boisduvalia diffusa, Valerianella iu'<<in", 

 V. ciliosa, Le^iiKjin pc-i-tinata, /'. <v ><,<,,, ,< . riopoda, P. solidaginea, P. 

 sn'briscosa, Asfei mi it is, A n iidt -'and 1 % • i pa Ifiscens. To the 

 same paper is appended a revision of the genus Tfnpidncurputii, includ- 

 ing four species. 



An important paper comes to us from the College of Agriculture of 

 the Imperial University of Japan (Bull. 5, Vol. II, Dec, 1895). It in- 

 cludes a descriptive list of the winter state of the trees of Japan, by 

 H. Shirasawa, illustrated by twelve crowded plates of twigs and buds. 



Dr. J. C. Arthur has found out that the common notion of farmers 

 that one of the seeds in the bur of the Cocklebur (Xaiithium eunadense) 

 germinates one year and the other does not grow until the following or 

 some subsequent year is true. He details his observations and experi- 

 ments in a paper in the Proceedings of the 16th Annual Meeting of 

 the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science. " The purpose 

 of this seemingly unique character is to distribute the two seeds of the 

 bur in time, t 'ihi in space Wing impossible owing 



to the indehiscent structure." 



The announcement that the Botanical Gazette is hereafter to be pub- 

 lished by the University of Chicago will please every friend of science, 

 since it insures it- pennant nc* and pr. vides fur thai growth which the 

 development of American botany demands. 



Suggestions About Antidromy and Didromy. — The inter- 

 esting notes from Prof. Todd in the Naturalist for March seem to 

 me to bear upon a phenomenon which is different from what I have 

 called antidromy : upon the *r<»,n>f<irij chntujes in the ordinary growth 

 which seem to be intimately related to the direction of light and the 

 necessities of exposure to air. They are commonly shown by the foli- 

 age of such plants as the elm, morningglory, peach, and Forsythia, 

 and very often by flowers, in which they may subserve cross-ferfiliza- 



Antidromij, in its strict sense, is a diversity of a primitive character, 

 arising phylogenetically away down in the cryptogams, and 

 with singular constancy through all the Phaenogams ; and ontogenet- 

 ically it starts in the ovule, depending on the circumstance that every 

 plant bears two castes of seeds, one set on each border of the carpel lary 

 phyllome. I have not yet determined whether it is a dextrose seed that 

 grows on the right margin of the carpel : but all the carpels on the 

 same plant seem to retain the twist of the plant which bears them (well 



