NOTE and COMMENT 



White Horsemint. — Several years ago, one rather wet 

 summer, while doing field work in botany, the writer came 

 upon a big- bunch of the wild purple horsemint {Monarda 

 fistidosa ) which was snow white. The leaves were just a shade 

 lighter green than other bunches growing about, but the blos- 

 soms were white as snow with not a hint of color showing 

 either in bud or full grown blooms. The flowers were ex- 

 amined daily until all buds had bloomed and died without 

 showing color. The white mint did not appear the following 

 year and the question still remains, what did it? — Mrs. James 

 Edzciu Morris, Arthur, Illinois. [This is undoubtedly a case 

 of albinism of which many exist in both plants and animals. 

 It is due to a lack of some factor which causes pigmentation. 

 It is rarely found in flowers whose colors depend upon definite 

 colored corpuscles in the cells but is not uncommon in those 

 colored by cell sap. Albino flowers seldom if ever revert to the 

 normal colored form, and usually their seeds produce albinos 

 like themselves. — Ed.] 



PuFFBALLS FOR NosEBLEED. — Mrs. J. D. Tuttlc, Marl- 

 boro, N. H., notes that the ''smoke" from the puffball is useful 

 in stopping bleeding from the nose, being simply puffed into 

 the nose. The "smoke" of course, consists of myriads of puff- 

 ball spores and in all probability stops the flow of blood much 

 as other powdered substances might do. A physician to whom 

 the cure was mentioned said it was harmless, at least, but this 

 latter statement may be open to doubt. It is surmised that cer- 

 tain eye troubles may be caused by spores of the puft'ball get- 



