EDITORIAL. 
At first thought, it seems preposterous to assert that a single 
seed has within it the possibiHties for a whole summer of original 
investigation ; but the longer one considers the matter, the more 
certain it becomes that this is so. As soon as the cotyledons have 
shaken off the seed-coats the mysteries begin. The garden let- 
tuce is ordinarily an unattractive plant that seems to grow only to 
be eaten, but when one has seen a bed of lettuce seedlings asleep 
with every pair of seed leaves folded together, the plant has a new 
charm for him that does not come by way of the table. The 
thought that Tennyson addressed to the 'Tlant in the crannied 
wall" must ever recur to the speculative botanist and spur him on 
to new endeavors. We do not care so much why or how a plant 
got its name; our queries are, how did it come to be ; why is it as 
it is; and to what purpose are these various modifications of stem 
and leaf and flower and seed vessel. No one can find this out about 
a single plant in any one summer, nor yet many summers ; but he 
can come nearer to the truth than he is at present. It is not neces- 
sary to go to distant lands for such study— the lawn, the garden, 
the weedy roadside furnish material in plenty—but just as a 
strange plant in the midst of familiar ones attracts the most atten- 
tion, a new plant is most likely to prove best for study. At this 
season when every field and thicket is full of seedpods, our readers 
should not forget to gather seeds of the more attractive flowers 
for exchange with distant botanists. Few phases of botany give 
more pleasure than the rearing of a strange plant from a seedling 
to maturity. 
The article upon the origin of species by mutation reprinted in 
this number is of value in confirming a theory previously held by 
many botanists, among whom the late Thomas Meehan was one 
of the foremost. The deeper we go intO' the subject, the more 
certain it appears that all species have been formed by a succes- 
sion of bounds rather than by slow gradations; but it is to be as- 
sumed that the new species formed differed more widely from 
the parent than the segregates of O'cnothcra Lamar ckiana, are 
