THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



113 



a pleasant sweetish flavor rather better than that of the Jeru- 

 salem artichoke. At elevations below 6,000 feet another series 

 of root-crops is grown consisting of numerous varieties of 

 rumu (Manihot), unchuca (Xanthosoma) , achira (Canna) 

 and unguna (Ciircuuia.) — O. F. Cook in National Geographi- 

 cal Magazine. 



Chewing Gum an Aid to Gardening. — Tne harm that 

 results from chewing gum, like that from chewing tobacco, 

 depends somewhat on who does the chewing and why. Some 

 Gt the sphynx moths begin to chew tobacco as soon as they 

 are born and keep it up until fully grown without being 

 harmed by it. Their nerves are not shattered, their growth 

 arrested nor their digestion impaired, for they are among the 

 largest and strongest of their kind. There are times, also, 

 when chewing gum may be defended. A lady of our acquaint- 

 ance has discovered that chewing-gum is an ideal substance 

 for sticking the Boston ivy and other vines to their supports 

 until they take hold for themselves. As soon as this fact 

 becomes generally known we expect all gardeners to throw 

 away their tobacco and lay in a stock of gum. 



Mayapple w^th Multiple Fruits. — In this magazine 

 for August 1915 we illustrated a specimen of mayapple (Podo- 

 phyllnm peltatuni) with five fruits instead of the one ordinarily 

 seen. At the time, it was not known whether the extra fruits 

 were produced by additional flowers, or whether the phenome- 

 non was due to an increase in the number of carpels in the ordi- 

 nary flower. That this species occasionally has more than one 

 carpel in a flower had been earlier noted by Gray, but that the 

 occurrence is somewhat rare may be inferred from the fact that 

 other manuals do not mention it. A visit to the haunts of the 

 aberrant specimens when they were in bloom this year, showed 

 that the multiple fruits are due to extra carpels and not to addi- 

 tional flowers. This is an interesting instance of doubling akin 

 to that seen in the production of extra petals, and all the more 



