THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 73 
their reputation tO' this day. And one day the head of a Dervish 
brotherhood in Arabia noticed that whenever his goats partook of 
a particular shrub they became more vigorous and wideawake in 
their capermgs. So' he resolved tO' try whether some infusion of 
the berries from this same shrub might not wake his "monks" 
from chronic lethargy that afflicted them. The stimulating and 
enlivening effects of coffee brought it tO' the front, and we find 
that the earliest patrons of the coffee-houses which introduced it 
were considered wild fellows and "sad dogs." Later on com- 
plaints of quite another kind were urged against it. Coffee drink- 
ing, it was asserted, would inevitably impair the productiveness 
of the race, and humanity unable to perpetuate itself would dis- 
appear from the face of the earth. But coffee survived this, and 
equally malicious assaults. ~/?Z(i/an Gardening. 
NOTE AND COMMENT. 
Wanted. — Short noj:es of interest to the general botanist are 
always in demand for this department. Our readers are invited 
to make this the place of publication for their botanical items. 
Seeds of Lotus EDiBLE.~The seeds of the lotus (Nelnmbium 
lotus), the well known cultivated plant, are eaten as nuts by the 
Chinese and other natives. When ripe they are peeled and eaten 
V2iw.— Indian Gardening. 
Mosses Used in Millinery.— In the November Bryologist, 
Mrs. E. G. Britton notes that Cliniaciuin dcndroideum, is also 
used in millinery, and that Hylocomium prolifernm is used in the 
manufacture of moss-roses. 
"Farewell to SuMMER."~Mr. Graves' note on the name of 
last rose of summer, applied to the New England aster {Aster 
Nova-angliae) recalls the fact that this plant is also known by the 
appropriate and poetic name of "farewell to summer." 
Range of the Birch.— The birches are trees of boreal range. 
Unknown in the Southern Hemisphere and the Tropics, they 
abound throughout the northern and moimtainous sections of 
North America, Europe and Asia, reaching a more extreme north- 
* ern range on both continents than any other trees.— M. L. Fernald 
in American Journal of Science. 
