THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
tion, and we commend the Riidbcckia as worthy of introduction 
to any garden, and particularly to one where a corner is reserved 
for our wild flowers. I have found it difficult to make trans- 
planted roots live, but from seeds scattered I have a vigorous plant 
which bloomed freely late last summer, and is very flourishing at 
the present um^.-Floroicc Bcckzcifh in Vick's Magazine. 
HABITS OF THE DAXDELIOX. 
Let us take the history of one very common flower, the common 
dandelion. W^hen it is in bud, the flower-stalk is short and lies 
on the ground. Wlien the flower is ready to open, the stalk rises 
itself perpendicularly. \Miat we call a dandelion flower is really 
a bunch of flowers, some hundred florets ranged on a flat disc. 
The outer rows of florets open first, then the inner and inner ones 
ending with the center ones. This lasts some days, and every 
evening about sunset the flower head closes up so as to protect the 
delicate florets from night dews and probably from night insects. 
I found, however, that I could keep a dandelion awake all night 
by exposing it to the blaze of an Argand lamp, which prevented it 
going to sleep. \Mien all the florets have opened, the yellow 
corollas shrivel up. the stalk lays itself down on the ground so as 
to be out of danger and the seeds gradually mature. When they 
are ripe, the flower-stalk by some mysterious instinct becomes 
aware of the fact, and raises itself so as to stand up boldly in the 
wind, which seizes the seeds by their beautiful parachutes and 
carries them oft' to fresh fields and pastures new, and thus enables 
the plant to sow itself in any recently ttirned ground or in any 
other suitable locality.—Lor^/ Avehiiry {Sir John Lubbock) in 
Natures Xofes. 
A XEW for:^i of BRUXELLA. 
Francis Canning in a paper recently read before the Pennsyl- 
vania Horticultural Society mentions a new form of Brunella as 
follows : "There is a wild plant which of late years has adopted 
unusual circumstances and is an instance of where the vegetative 
organs become the reproductive. This plant is Brunella vulgaris, 
or self-heal. Apart from its usual haunts, roadsides and fields, 
it has established itself in well-kept lawns, where even the action 
