THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



119 



May-apple Jelly, — Last summer our May-apples 

 were so large that I experimented with them. I wdsh I 

 could send you a glass of the fine jelly I made. It is fine, 

 a clear light amber color, and the flavor delicate and delici- 

 ous, I took some of it to our Horticultural meeting and 

 it was liked very much. It has no medicinal qualities and 

 is one more fruit for scarce years. — Mrs, C, A, Iddings, 

 Brinklow, Md. [From the resemblance of the May-apple 

 {Podophyllum) to the well known guava (Psidium) of the 

 tropics, the editor has often suggested that like the guava, 

 it might be used for jellies and marmalades. It is pleas- 

 ant to hear of success in this line, — Ed.] 



Plant Secretions, — In the April American Botanist 

 the editor voices a theory that is certainly worthy of dis- 

 cussiom Now that we have outgrown the belief that 

 pretty posies were not made to please mankind, it is time 

 to begin finding out why plants produce certain sub- 

 stances. Students of physiological botany will have 

 work to keep them out of mischief (synonomy) for a cen- 

 tury or two at least in telling us just why and how the 

 primary, secondary and tertiary products are evolved and 

 utilized or eliminated in the plant economy. Scorpions 

 and rattlesnakes sometimes commit suicide, but we hope 

 to never learn that the poppy is addicted to the morphine 

 habit, — O, W. Barrett, Mayaguez, Porto Rico. 



Grass-nut, — Referring to the recent notes concerning 

 the use of the word nut-grass, Mr. Julian Reverchon, Dal- 

 las, Texas, sends us the following: — The name of grass-nut 

 is applied here to a plant quite difierent from cyperus. It 

 is the Nemastylis acuta^ a plant of the iris family with 

 bulbs the size of a pigeon's egg. These have a sweet taste 

 and are really palatable ; so much so that the hogs root 

 them out and are sure to destroy the plant where they 

 have access to it. It has been sparingly introduced in cul- 

 tivation as blue tigridia and deserves to be better known 

 not only on account of its beautiful sky-blue flowers but 

 as a vegetable as well. It grows in rich black prairie land 

 and is an early bloomer. 



