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THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



New Method of Pollination. — According to Indian 

 Planting and Gardening sin English gardener has hit upon 

 a new way of cross-pollenating plants. Finding a camel's 

 hair brush wasteful of pollen, he tried a stick of sealing 

 wax and found that when this was rubbed briskly on his 

 coat sleeve as for an electrical experiment and then pre- 

 sented to the flower, the pollen at once flew to it and ad- 

 hered, allowing every particle to be used. 



Origin of Cultivated Plants.— All plants whatever 

 — orchid, palm, lily, pelargonium or fern — are found abso- 

 lutely wild on some portions of the world's surface some- 

 where or other in Nature's great wild garden. The most 

 beautiful of all our hothouse and greenhouse or conserva- 

 tory plants originally existed wild in forests and prairie 

 or in the rivers and lakes or on the mountains and could 

 be collected without let or hindrance by any traveller who 

 cared to do so. — Gardening World. 



Weeds. — The statement that a weed is only a plant 

 out of place is doubtless correct. Often the ''weed" is 

 carefully cultivated in other places. A singular instance 

 of this is given by a writer in The Gardening World who 

 says that visiting a friend in Singapore who had just 

 cleared up some jungle for a residence, he found him great- 

 ly troubled by weeds, which persisted in springing up in 

 his lawn and flower beds. In this case the most trouble- 

 some were the native pitcher plant {Nepenthes raffiesiana) 

 and several palms and ferns ! 



St. John's-wort in Winter.— I have often gathered 

 the winter shoots of the common St. John's-wort {Hyperi- 

 cum perforatum) for decorative purposes. They are long 

 and slender, thickly crowded with green leaves, and very 

 pretty for vases and table decoration. They grow flat on 

 the ground, often twelve or fifteen inches long and so un- 

 like the upright summer growth of the plant that one 

 may well be puzzled when coming upon a mat of these 

 prostrate branches for the first time, to know the familiar 

 weed in its winter garb.— Mrs. Frances Wilson Starmer 

 in report to Gray Botanical Chapter. 



