THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



157 



seeds of two varieties and sticking half of two different seeds 

 together. Anybody gulhble enough to* beheve this should try it. 



;J< ijc ^ 



Here is another gem quoted by Horticulture. ''That there 

 are meat-eating plants is generally known, but that there are 

 also plants that cough — not figuratively, but in the true literal 

 sense of the word — will be surprising to most readers. Indeed, 

 to the researches of a French botanist we owe the description of 

 a plant growing in certain tropical regions which obviously 

 coughs like a human being. It is very sensitive and shows a 

 strange dislike to any kind of dust. No sooner do a few grains 

 of dust settle on its leaves and thereby irritate the air chambers 

 of the sheath scale which represents the organs of breathing, 

 than these organs fill with a kind of gas, swell up, and then 

 explosively reject the gas whereby the dust is expulsed. This 

 explosion produces a sound which has a striking resemblance 

 to the cough of a child who has caught cold." The writer says 

 we would be surprised to hear of this plant and we gracefully 

 own up. We are. Any time the plants in our vicinity begin to 

 cough, ''not figuratively but in the true literal sense of the 

 word", we are going straight off to consult a doctor and we 

 advise our readers to do likewise under similar circumstances. 

 We insist that it is not natural for a plant to cough, principally 

 because it lacks coughing facilities, having neither lungs, trachea, 

 throat nor diaphragm.- Why did not our nature-faker turn 

 that cough into a sneeze and explain that the plant sneezed 

 because the dust tickled its nose. It would have been just as 

 truthful. The French botanist who originated this remarkable 

 story ought to be rounded up and sent to the front at once. 

 He ought to be able to annihilate whole battalions and sink all 

 the submarines — on paper. 



