16 
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
obtainable from the seeds of a plant of the same dimensions 
averages annually to about that amount. When it is re- 
membered that the sago obtainable from the seeds of the 
cycad is, for all practical purposes the same in quantity, too, 
as that from the stem of the plant, it will be admitted that 
there is no good reason beyond custom, perhaps, to support 
the practice of felling it for the elimination of the product. 
It is evidently a practice which the voracity of some barbar- 
ous tribe inaugurated ages ago and which their compara- 
tively enlightened descendants on the hills and plains still 
keep up. — From an article in Indian Gardening and Plant- 
ing. 
Note and Comment. 
Wanted. — Short notes of interest to the general botan- 
ist are ?ihv?ys ia (lemand for this department. Our read- 
ers are invited to make this the place of publication for their 
botanical notes. It should be noted that the magazine is 
issued as soon as possible after the fifteenth of each month. 
Color Variations in a Common Trillium. — A 
short distance from my office there is, in a swampy piece 
of woodland, a patch, perhaps five feet square, of the 
common purple trillium in which hardly any two flowers 
are the same color. They run through all shades from 
the usual dark red to a light yellow and light green. Some 
are a pale dirty pink, some speckled and some striped. None 
are solid colors except the green and red ones. A few 
smaller clumps near these also show the same variations. 
Is this something unusual or do they often do it? Have 
found them in other places when they were a dirty yellow 
