112 



THE A^IERICAN BOTANIST 



do not offer any inducements to the bees, it is unlikely that 

 they are ever visited and, therefore, the bees are certainly not 

 pollinating agents though the secretion of honey on the corn 

 silk would soon induce them to become such. The visits of 

 the bees to the corn flowers call attention anew to the fact 

 that bees gather pollen as well as nectar. It is likely that a 

 majority of people imagine that bees always visit flowers in 

 quest of nectar, which is far from correct. 



Planting Irises. — The time to plant most irises is in 

 late August or early September. The plants at this season 

 are nearly dormant and can be moved with little risk. If 

 moved now, they usually become so well established before 

 cold weather that they Avill bloom the following spring, while 

 if one waits until spring to move his plants, he usually loses 

 one season's flowers. Dealers list such an immense number 

 of named forms of the German iris that one may easily be 

 confused, but if ordering" at random, he will make no mistake 

 in selecting Purple King, Queen of May, Jacquesiana, Hon- 

 orable, Florentina and IMadam Chereau. Still handsomer 

 than the German irises, in fact the handsomest irises in the 

 world that are easily cultivated, are those forms of Iris pallida 

 called Dahnatica and spcciosa. The best way to buy irises is 

 to visit a nursery when the plants are in bloom and select the 

 kinds that are most pleasing, but if one failed to do this last 

 spring, his only hope of flowers next year will be to order 

 from the descriptions in the catalogues and to do it now. 



Color Correlation in Peaches. — It is coming to be 

 well known that correlations in color are not infrequent in 

 plants. Given a species that produces flowers of more than 

 one color, the grower usually has no difliculty in separating 

 the strong colors from the less pronounced while the plants 

 are still in the seed bed. In the forms with light colored 

 flowers, even the stem and leaves are lighter in color than 

 the others. A similar correlation has recently been found 



