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THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



large, beautiful flower. The other form usually recognized, 

 with all the petals of the same lilac-purple is quite common, 

 intermingled with the more showy form. There are on this 

 same hillside various intermediate color forms between the 

 two. — John H. SchaiTner, Co'himbus^ Ohio. [The two-colored 

 form of the bird-foot violet was originally regarded as a 

 strictly eastern form of the plant, but a long time ago, Thomas 

 Meehan recorded it in Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois. Its 

 discovery in Ohio completes the chain as far west as Iowa. In 

 all probability this bicolored form may be expected wherever 

 the species is found. The two forms of the plant doubtless 

 represent two elementary species but if sO' there are several 

 questions regarding them that need to be settled. Does the 

 two-colored form breed true or does it produce both forms 

 from seed? Can pure strains of both forms be bred? If the 

 two forms thus produced are then crossed, will the characters 

 separate out in the usual Mendelian ratio? Those who have 

 access to both forms of the plant might find the solution of 

 these problems an interesting piece of work. — Ed.] 



Queer Cactus Fruits. — The various species of cactus 

 are usually cited as examples of the extreme in plant form, but 

 recent investigation has shown that unusual forms are not the 

 only instances of peculiarities possessed by these plants. Their 

 methods of bearing fruits in some species seems without a 

 parallel. Most plants develop and ripen their fruits soon after 

 the flowers have fallen, but some species of cactus do not begin 

 to form their fruits for a year or more after flowering. Accord- 

 ing to D. S. Johnson, other species are still more tardy in 

 dropping their fruits. In some cases the fruits are retained for 

 as many as fifteen years and during this time the original fruit 

 by a sort of proliferation may become a multitude. In 

 Opimtia fulgida, for instance, the primary flower has hardly 

 fallen before other flower-buds originate on the young fruit and 



