36 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
in form is not due to nutrition, temperature or salts and there is 
still some doubt as to the real cause of the changes, but it now 
seems settled that it is not due to lack of light. 
New Use of White- Wood.-- According to the Medical Re- 
cord, the white-wood {Liriodendron tiilipifera) is an efficient 
cure for the tobacco habit. The part used is the inner bark 
which may be chewed fresh, or powdered and mixed with liquor- 
ice and sugar and formed into tablets to be taken whenever a crav- 
ing for tobacco is experienced. 
The Number of Cactus Species.— Many people who have 
been acquainted only with the prickly pear and the cholla cactus 
of the plains, perhaps to the detriment of their epidermis, will be 
surprised to learn that over one thousand valid species exist, to 
which more than three thousand names have been applied by 
botanists and horticulturists. — IVfst American Scientist. 
Use of Mosses in MiLLiNERY.—Cora H. Clarke notes in the 
September Bryologist that two species of moss have been found 
in use in Boston by milliners. One species, conjectured tO' be 
Hypiimn purnm of Europe, is made into a sort of flat braid three 
inches wide and sells for twenty-five cents a yard; the other is 
formed into a sort of cord half an inch in diameter which looks 
like green chenille. This sells for ten cents a yard. The species 
used seems toi be another foreigner, Neckera crispa. 
The California Poppy.— More than one student has wonder- 
ed at the unpronounceable botanical name of the California poppy 
Eschscholtzia, so guiltless of any relationship with the Latin from 
which most botanical names spring full-fledged. It appears that 
we owe it to the name of the first botanist who classified it, one 
Eschscholtz. Yet he was not the first discoverer, for centuries 
before, the Spanish mariners, even while far out at sea, had their 
attention arrested by what appeared to be sheets of golden flame 
spread over this unknown land towards which they were sailing. 
And when they came nearer they saw that this strange phenomen- 
on was caused by millions upon millions of these golden flowers, 
"blazing along the Pacific coast, embroidering the green foot-hills 
of the snow-capped Sierra Madres, transforming acres and acres 
of treeless plains into royal cloth of gold.'' —N cw Century 
