EDITORIAL. 
It was formerly supposed that the newspapers had the exclusive 
right to publish startling and unfounded stories about plants, but 
of late the horticultural and floricultural publications seem inclin- 
ed to enroach upon this field. That tropical weed the Bryo- 
phylhun a species allied to our common live-forever {Scduui) and 
often the base of amazing stories in the past, is again to the front 
in a paragraph to the effect that it is impossible to kill it. *'You 
may chop it up into bits," says the article ''and every piece will 
produce a new plant.'' The simple fact is that the leaves of the 
Bryophylhim, like those of the live-for-ever are rather tenacious 
of life and if they come in contact with moist soil even after sev- 
ered from the plant, will produce new plantlets from buds on their 
margins. Another horticultural magazine gravely informs its 
readers that the grape-fruit {Citnis decumana) receives its com- 
mon name from the fact that it grows ''in grapose clusters." 
Everybody that has seen the grape-fruit growing knows that the 
fruits hang singly, like their near relatives the orange and lemon. 
"Grapose clusters" savors strongly of facts manufactured to fit 
the explanation. 
In an article on walking sticks that orginiated in a magazine 
devoted to floriculture and has since been widely circulated, we 
are told that most walking sticks come from abroad and are tow- 
ed to this country by various vessels in order that the salt water 
may harden them in transit. Without knowing positively that a 
bundle of walking sticks has never been dragged across the At- 
lantic in the wake of a steamer, the editor ventures the opinion 
that most skippers would prefer such cargoes inside their vessels 
and would even prefer to salt them, if need be, rather than have 
them flopping along behind. 
These stories are harmless though absurd, but of a different 
nature is a recent article to the effect that every fruit carries with 
it plain indications of its beneficial or harmful nature. All fruits 
such as the apple which bear the marks of the blossom are to be 
eaten and all which do not are to be avoided. Such methods of 
distinguishing between the good and bad, however, are unreliable 
tor there are nearly as many edible fruits that do not bear the 
