192 



Report on Botany. 



the mouth of the animal, and "being a source of annoyance 

 to it they are ruhbed off from time to time on the branch. 

 Those that adhere through the winter to the young and 

 tender shoot of the past season germinate and form, during 

 the first summer, the little hemispherical buds above men- 

 tioned. During their second season these increase in 

 stature and form their flower buds. Probably early in the 

 following season, the third in the life of the plant, the flowers 

 expand and by the middle of September the fruit is ma- 

 ture. In but two instances were branched specimens 

 found. These were without fruit and on the fifth or sixth 

 internode, showing that occasionally the plant continues 

 longer than three seasons or else that sometimes the seeds 

 germinate on internodes of more than one .year's growth. 

 A most remarkable feature in this plant is that the male 

 and female plants do not grow intermingled on the same 

 branch but appear thus far to always inhabit separate 

 branches, a mystery to which we can only say why is this 

 so ? I have been informed that this plant was detected in 

 the Adirondack mountains a few weeks previous to its dis- 

 covery in Sandlake, thus affording the remarkable coinci- 

 dence of the discovery of a plant in one season by two 

 different individuals in widely separated localities. A' 

 similar occurrence might be mentioned in the discovery of 

 two species of fungi hitherto unknown ; both having been 

 found the past season in three widely separated localities by 

 three different persons. At first thought such occurrences 

 might suggest the idea of a new creation or as Darwinism 

 would say, of a new development, but when we consider 

 that these are all small and rather obscure plants, there is 

 nothing improbable in supposing them to have long existed 

 and been overlooked. Possibly something in the season 

 may have been very favorable to their development and they 

 were unusually plenty at this time, which fact might 

 account for the coincident discoveries. 



