THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 
89 
the still deep woods, where the rare plant of his seeking spreads 
its palmate leaves and nurses its family of small red berries. 
With the ginseng of the books he has no acquaintance; what he 
knows is ''ginshang," but this so familiarly that he has even 
verbalized it, and speaks of its quest as "goin' ginshangin'." He 
will spend days in contented search for it, faring dinnerless if need 
be, and sleeping out in the open, until his pockets, packed and 
bulging, he returns to his home, lays his spoil on the garret floor 
to dry and takes up again the thread of his village life. As other 
men go fishing, he goes ''ginshanging." — C. F. Saunders in Phila- 
delphia Record, 
NOTE AND COMMENT. 
Wanted. — Short notes of interest to the general botanist are 
always in demand for this department. Our readers are invited 
)to make this the place oi publication for their botanical items. 
Origin: of the Name ''Buckthorn.'' — According to Mee- 
han's Monthly the word buckthorn, was orginally box-thorn. 
The Sensitive Plant and Ether. — It is stated that a se 
sitive plant placed under a bell glass with a sponge so^aked in 
ether promptly goes to sleep just as an animal would under the 
same circumstances. 
A Botanist Defined. — According to a South African journal 
''A botanist is a scientific man who has had a university educa- 
tion; he is very seldom a good amateur gardener; his time is 
mostly occupied with plant mummies, and is a most useful man to 
the gardener and nurseryman in giving names to plants, and to 
the State in settling all questions of plant life." 
Death of Wm. H. McDonald. — Wm.H. McDonald, General 
Secretary of the Gray Memorial Botanical Chapter, was struck 
by a train at Elizabeth, N. J., on June 12th and instantly killed. 
•Mr. McDonald was a most enthusiastic botanist and did much to 
build up the society of which he was the secretary. His loss 
will be felt by a large number of correspondents. 
