62 
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
part that it is certain to be admired when one sees it—which most 
people do not. 
Pick a branch and you have doubts after all w^hether it is to 
be admired, for it is closely covered with harsh hairs that are any- 
thing but pleasant to touch. It is also sticky and the smell is de- 
cidedly objectionable. Be assured; it does not sting or poison, 
and well repays close acquaintance. These hairs, placed under 
an ordinary pocket lens are most wonderfully arranged; set in 
bundles like cluster of many needles with a hat pin in the center. 
The hairs seen with the naked eye are the long ones only. 
These hairs are thickly interlaced and serve several very useful 
purposes, the first of which may be protection from sheep or other 
grazing animals, for in this dry, bare season food is scarce and 
everything available is cropped. Then they protect the epider- 
mis from dust which otherwise in this country would quickly 
choke the pores ; and they supply the plant with water. Look at 
a turkey weed any dewy or foggy morning and see how thickly 
the drops of water are set on these hairs ; pick a branch and sec 
how heavy. By experiment the leaves have been found to double 
their own weight and with a microscope the water can be seen to 
enter the hairs ; that is why the plant grows and blooms and ma- 
tures seed, with no rain, soil dry and hard and a continuous blaze 
of hot sunshine. 
The unpleasant, acrid smell probably is another device for 
keeping away grazing animals for it is said that sheep when 
starving will not eat the plant. In the latter part of July or Au- 
gust it makes its appearance and by the end of October it has liv- 
ed its life. 
Orange Cal. 
EXPERRIENTS WITH THE FRINGED GENTIAN. 
By Chas. C. Plitt. 
In the Note and Comment department of the September Bot- 
anist, Mr. J. A. Bates notes the irregular occurrence of Gen- 
tiana crinita and ''that the blossoms are comparatively few on al- 
ternate years." I have noted the same irregularity here in the 
vicinity of Baltimore, and offer the following, which tends to 
show that the plant is a hiennial and not an anmial as stated in 
Gray and also in Britton and Brown, as the explanation. 
