Botany. 531 
BOTANY.” 
AN OVERLOOKED Fuxcriox or Many Frurts.— It is a matter 
of common observation that many fruits (carpels) are green in color 
for a considerable period after the fertilization of the ovules, but I 
am not aware that particular attention has been called to the signifi- 
cance of this fact. Different botanical authors mention, incidentally 
as it were, the fact that as long as the young fruits are green they, 
of course, perform the functions of leaves, by the fixation of carbon 
in the process of assimilation. All such statements, however, take 
e Box Elder (Negundo aceroides Moench) develops its fruits 
tis later, but they take on likewise a rich green color, and in the 
atter part of May in some instances add fully fifty per cent. to the 
assimilating surface of the tree. Maples, Ashes, and even Poplars 
and Willows, the latter to a less degree, present the same phe- 
nomena, and in fact, in by far the greater number of instances the 
or ae of the fruit for aid in the work of assimilation is the rule. 
“tie the Pines and their allies the development of chlorophyll- 
ing tissue is confined to the scales of the cone. In the biennial 
ee there is but little green tissue the first year, when the ovule 
cone mant, but with the beginning of those rapid changes which 
tad In the spring of the second year, the scales become enlarged 
O great masses of parenchyma richly provided with chloro yll. 
het aarked is this that I have often wondered whether the scale was 
ol Sad developed as an organ of nutrition. I have thought, 
of i mes, that possibly the scale was but a kind of dorsal growt 
© ovule, in order to provide itself with an assimilating tissue. 
S E. Bessey, ; Poe 
* Edited by Prof. Chas. E. Bessey, Lincoln, Neb. 
