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THE AMERICAN BOTANIST . 



reason why the pollen grains of one plant will not ger- 

 minate on the stigma of a related flower and why other 

 plants more distantly related can be crossed with it. It 

 depends largely upon the structure of the molecules of 

 their protoplasm. Stereochemistry opens an inviting field 

 for speculation and its further advances will doubtless be 

 fertile in results. 



Fruits With a Fever. — Plants are so different from 

 animals that we sometimes fail to realize that they are not 

 only alive but that their tissues function like animal tissues at 

 least so far as the fundamental life processes go. Plants 

 respire, digest, assimilate, excrete, perspire and perform many 

 other acts which are regarded as chiefly characteristic of ani- 

 mals. Plants may even get a fever when injured. When a 

 potato tuber is cut, its temperature immediately begins to rise. 

 Wlien animals exercise they become warm and so do plants, 

 for the liberation of energy is always accompanied by heat. 

 In the case of ripening bananas it has been found that one 

 calorie of heat per kilogram per hour is liberated. In this case 

 the starch is being turned to sugar, exactly as in digestion in 

 animals. 



Eucalyptus vs. Sequoia. — The general impression, 

 seems to be that the blue gums (Eucalyptus) of Australia are 

 the tallest trees in the world but that the redwoods (Sequoia) 

 of California have the greatest girth. This impression, how- 

 ever, seems to need revision. According to a note in Scientific 

 American by F. W. Goding, U. S. Consul General at Guaya- 

 quil, Equador, the tallest specimen of Eucalyptus thus far 

 measured was 220 feet high, while Dr. Sargent records a 

 specimen of the California big tree 340 feet in height. If these 

 measurements are correct, the American trees are more than a 

 hundred feet taller than the best specimens of Eucalyptus thus 

 far discovered and this record leaves our own big trees with 

 such a lead that it is probable that our claim to having not only 



