THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



149 



are cultivated and are regarded by plant lovers as quite as 

 handsome as any other garden flowers. The New York 

 aster (A. nova-Belgii) has no less that twenty-six varieties 

 in cultivation, the flowers ranging in color from white to clear 

 blue and deep pink. If ever the species maker gets hold of 

 an up-to'-date nurseryman's list what a changing of names and 

 making of new species there will be ! 



Stability at Last. — One thing that CA^ery botanist de- 

 sires is stability in plant names. Some fifteen or twenty years 

 ago, wx were told that to get stability, all we had to do was to 

 follow the lead of certain advocates of an "American Code" 

 for naming plants. A good many students whO' thought they 

 co'uld forcast the future to some extent were dubious about 

 such methods of obtaining stability but others showed their 

 confidence in the new movement by using the nomenclature 

 in the books they issued. The monumental 'TUustrated Flora" 

 used this nomenclature and now that the second edition has 

 appeared we can see just how this stability works. We find 

 that during the time that elapsed between the first and second 

 editions, 136 genera and several hundred species have had a 

 change of name. This ought to settle those obstreperous indi- 

 viduals who keep repeating that there is no stability under the 

 American Code. If changing so many plant names isn't 

 stability, what is it? 



Wine-red Sunflowers. — It is likely that the common 

 garden sunflower is well known tO' everybody. The large 

 golden-yellow ray-flowers and dark disk-flowers make it a 

 most conspicuous object whether growing in the garden or 

 as an escape along roadsides. In its native home, between 

 the Mississippi river and the Rocky mountains, there is a 

 variety Icnticularis which occasionally has the base of the rays 

 marked with chestnut-red. Recently, Prof. T. D. A. Cockerell, 

 who- found plants of this kind, resolved tO' see w^hat could be 

 made of it by breeding, and by crossing it with an English 



