NOTE AND COMMENT. 

 W anted. — Short notes of interest to the general botanist 

 are always in demand for this department. Our readers are in- 

 vited to make this the place of publication for their botanical 

 items. 



Coffee-Leaf Tea. — It is possible that the leaves of the 

 coffee tree will one day become marketable. A chemical analysis 

 shows that the leaf contains all the characteristic properties of the 

 berry, but is richer in theine. The natives of Sumatra make a 

 drink from these leaves, and Europeans who, presumbably, have 

 tried it on their own account, declare the coffee-leaf tea to be a 

 pleasant and refreshing- beverage. 



The Bramble. — The common wild blackberry in England 

 is Rubus fruiticosus, as named by Linnaeus, and it is as fond of 

 living in a hedge as is a gypsy. Its blossoms are as often pink as 

 w hite and have somewhat the look of raspberry dowers. They ap- 

 pear first when summer is well advanced, and the fruit is ripened 

 all through the autumn. Country folk usually know the plant as 

 the bramble — a name imperishable, for was it not into a bramble 

 bush that the wondrous wise man of the nursery rhyme fell and 

 scratched out both his eyes? — S. 



Canker- Worm and Slippery Elm. — The past spring the 

 elm trees on our streets here were entirely stripped of foliage by 

 the Spring canker-worm. In some places the worms were so 

 thick on the sidewalks that people had to go out in the road to get 

 by them. I noticed on some streets where there were a few slip- 

 pery elms that the worms skipped them entirely, or in a few cases 

 it looked as if they had started on a few leaves and found them 

 not to their taste. I could not find a slippery elm in town that 

 was eaten to any extent. Is it generally understood that they dis- 

 like this tree? — Walter M. Buswell, Charclstozvn, N. H. 



