NOTE and COMMENT 



Double Hepaticas. — There is probably no more variable 

 plant in North America than the hepatica. Its flowers are of 

 every shade of color from white to deep blue or pink and they 

 vary as widely in the size of the blossoms and in the number of 

 colored parts, or sepals. Moreover, though the botanical 

 manuals record two species — Hepatica triloba and H. aciitUoha 

 — they all qualify the statement by adding that these two 

 species intergrade and one is warranted in the inference that 

 some of the plants are therefore neither one species nor the 

 other. Ordinarily there are from five to seven sepals in each 

 flower, though it is not difficult to- find blossoms with twelve or 

 more. From such semi-double flowers it is possible to produce 

 specimens that are really double, and one nurseryman is now 

 offering pink-flowered plants of this kind. It is likely that any 

 given color of hepatica flowers can be very much improved by 

 cultivation and those with a taste for such work may find here 

 a subject for experiment already much advanced by nature. The 

 fact that new strains may have a cash value should not be over- 

 looked. The abundance of the hepatica in almost any locality 

 gives wide scope for selection and further facilitates the pro- 

 duction of new forms. 



Experiments in Photosynthesis. — The time honored 

 method of showing the evolution of gas in photosynthesis, and 

 of securing enough of this gas for a test, consists in inverting 

 a short-stemmed glass funnel over a quantity of aquatic vege- 

 tation in a jar of water and inverting a test tube filled with 

 water over the stem of the funnel. As the gas is evolved it 



