1884.] Botany. 1145 
tor, Mr. T. H. Wise, of Wheaton, Ils., is a boy seventeen years 
of age. The journal is very creditable, and will doubtless be 
useful to young collectors. A. V. Leonhard has published in 
the Transactions of the St. Louis Acad. Science a descriptive 
catalogue of the minerals of Missouri and a list of the more im- 
portant localities of minerals in that state——-—Dieulafait has ex- 
amined the so-called “ cipolin marbles,” which occur in lenticular 
beds in gneiss in various parts of the world. He finds that a 
trace of manganese is invariably present, and argues from chemi- _ 
cal reasons that these marbles and the surrounding gneiss are 
contemporaneous deposits. Geological investigations have led 
to the same conclusion. Amalgam has been found at the 
Friedrichssegen mine near Oberlahnstein. Specimens of native 
Silver and native copper from the same locality have been found 
Sandberger to contain traces of mercury. 
BOTANY.! i 
SELF-PLANTING OF SEEDS OF PorcuPINE Grass.—In connection 
with the two notes relating to the fruit of the porcupine grass, it 
may not be without interest to state that while engaged in geo- 
logical work in Dakota, north of the Northern Pacific R. R., we 
were much annoyed by the fruit of this grass. Indeed I found 
the only way to walk with comfort through this grass was to roll 
my pants above my knees and my socks down over my shoes. 
_ Talso observed, on several occasions, these seeds planted two 
inches deep in the soil with the awn protruding from the ground. 
It is plain that with the point of one of these fruits once entered 
below the surface of the soil the swelling and shrinking, due to 
varying amounts of moisture, would work the seed directly into 
the ground.—F. H. King, River Falls, Wis. 
THE ADVENTITIOUS INFLORESCENCE OF CUSCUTA GLOMERATA.— 
The flowers of this dodder are in dense clusters, which at matu- 
rity are so much crowded that it is impossible to make out their 
mode of origin, hence they have been described as cymose, pani- 
cled or as densely clustered, with no hint or suggestion as to their 
adventitious origin, A study of their development the past sea- 
Son shows them to be strictly adventitious and, as a consequence, 
endogenous as to origin. 
A Short time Slee the flower clusters appear the dodder stems, 
Which are in close contact with their hosts, begin to beanies, 2m 
shown in Fig.’ 2, eventually becoming slightly lobulated. 
this time a longitudinal section of the stem be made, the cau 
'S reduced from a camera sketch. Ina cross-section of 
! Edited by Pror, C. E. Bessey, Ames, Iowa. 
