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THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



Sepals or Petals in Hepatica. — All botanical works 

 tell us that the conspicuous colored parts of the hepatica flower 

 are sepals, but Edward L. Greene in a recent number of the 

 Midland Naturalist presents some evidence to the contrary. In 

 a Wisconsin wood he found a number of these plants from 

 which not only the colored parts had fallen, but the three green 

 sepal-like objects that enclose them in the bud as well. Here- 

 tofore these green objects have been considered as forming an 

 involucre of three bracts, but if they fall with the other floral 

 parts, they might be considered as true sepals and the colored 

 parts as petals. It is not uncommon for plants in fruit to re- 

 tain the sepals though the petals fall early, but if one finds 

 peduncles of hepatica that have failed to fruit and from which 

 the green objects have fallen, the evidence that we are dealing 

 with sepals is rather convincing. The species that form the 

 Ranunculaceae or buttercup family present no uniformity as 

 to the presence or absence of a corolla. Clematis and Anciiione, 

 for example, though having flow^ers brightly colored, are re- 

 garded as liaAnng no petals, while Aquilegia, Ranunculus, and 

 Dclphininni have petals as well as sepals. 



Berries of Smilacina Stellata. — One does not have to 

 go far in any botanical Manual to discover that those who 

 make our textbooks are quite as fallible as anybody else. \Mien 

 they are in doubt they have a reprehensible habit of guessing 

 at the facts or of copying from someone else. The latter 

 method sometimes causes them tO' make absurd mistakes, as did 

 the author who copied a description of a small AA^estern com- 

 posite. In the original description a typographical error made 

 the ray-flowers two feet long, instead of so many inches, but 

 the purloiner of the description never saw the mistake and 

 copied it word for word. When the Manual makers begin to 

 guess they are not much better off. For a long time the berries 

 of the false Solomon's seal (Sniilacina raceniosa) were said to 

 be purple-dotted at maturity, when, in realit3^ they are so 



