152 



THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



satisfied without it. A trip for mushrooms across the Mich- 

 igan AgricuUural College grounds was rewarded recently by 

 finding a shaggy mane (Copriniis comatiis) so unusual in size 

 as to cjuite demand record. Standing in the grass near Red 

 Cedar river this patriarch of its kind towered to the full height 

 of fourteen and one-half inches. The umbrella, but little 

 raised as is the habit of these fleecy fellows, was ten inches 

 in circumference and eight inches in length. The stem, full 

 three and one-half inches around, stood sturdily bearing its 

 load of a little more than a pound. Lying on a man's arm 

 the cap covered the hand completely and the stem reached 

 back from the finger tips nearly to the elbow. Sometimes 

 Nature does her wonderful things in the little, the minute, 

 and then to remind us of her command over the full range 

 of things within her realm, she startles us with a displa}-^ of 

 her might. Whether in the great or the small there is always 

 the perfection of the master hand — ^never a line misplaced, 

 never a jar in color, never an error in proportion, but every- 

 where such grace and harmony as inclines her followers 

 toward like harmony and beauty. — H. T. Blodgett. 



Spider Flower Changing Color. — Like many another 

 pink-flowered species, the spider flower (Ckome pungcns) has 

 a white variety. To find both kinds of flowers growing on 

 the same plant, however, is something out of the ordinary and 

 when the two kinds of flowers turn out to be the same flov/er 

 at different stages of development, the fact is still more remark- 

 able. The list of flowers with changeable color is constantly 

 increasing, but so far as we are aware, none have been reported 

 in which colored fl'owers have become white as they grow 

 older. The cotton flower opens white and turns pink, as do- 

 the flowers of the white trillium, the Japanese hone3^suckle 

 opens white and turns yellow and several flowers, such as 

 apple and peach, which are pink in bud may become white or 

 nearly so in full flower, but the spider flower here noted opens 



