42 
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
dieted to leaving objects in these arboral resting places. While 
felling some trees several years ago the writer found in the 
heart of a post oak (Quercits sfellata), a curious collection of 
cherry stones, and the shells of hickory nuts. They occupied 
the centre of the bole and were a foot or more below the then 
present crotch. Some of the shells had been split open by 
action of frost before finally becoming enveloped between the 
expanding branches. The cavities, w^here once kernels had 
been, were found to be tightly packed with the soft cellular 
tissues, comprising the newly formed bark and wood. — /. Ford 
Senipers, Aikin, Md. 
A Freakish Datura. — A curious departure from the 
regular forms of one of the Solanaceae came under my ob- 
servation late last summer. Among the Datura mcteloides 
I found one so entirely different from this species, yet un- 
doubtedly belonging to the family that I considered it w^orthy 
of note. It grew in the same sprawling fashion as does the 
vieteloides, but its foliage was smaller and more finely divided 
The fruit was smooth, not the least prickly, and the blossoms 
were most peculiar; the calyx was spathe-like, the corolla united 
only at the base; the lobes hanging down in the same fashion 
that the lobes of the common Datura would hang if they were 
torn apart and left hanging from near the base. In color and 
odor it resembled the type, but the listless, lazy-looking petals 
are a curious travesty on the crisp funnel-shaped corolla of 
the Datura that grows in such profusion along the roadside. 
I gathered the unopened buds and let them open in the house, 
sheltered from wind or sun, so there cannot possibly be any 
mistake about the blossoms. Except the Datura metcloides, 
the only Solanaceae growing near was Solanuni Douglasii 
From whence came this strange hybrid, (if hybrid it is). 
California produces many curiosities among her plants, so 
many in fact that one can but w^onder if this be Nature's ex- 
perimental garden, where she not only produces puzzling 
