56 
THE AM ERICA xN: BOTANIST. 
of its being". Suppose the child leaves the flower he de- 
sires on its stalk ; ten minutes later a ragged urchin un- 
troubled by any law regarding "^the dainty little recluse'" 
calmly appropriates it. Exit all the effect of our moral dis- 
course. The way to protect plants is to adopt measures 
that protect. With flow^ers as with people just laws well 
enforced are the best sale-guards. If every effort were bent 
upon securing laws to protect the wild flowers needing 
protection, they would soon be in a fair way to escape ex-- 
termination. Without such laws^ of w^hat use is it that 
nine hundred and ninety -nine pass an attractive flower if 
the next comer picks it ? 
Scarlet - FRUITED Horse -gentian. — In Britton's 
"Manual of the Flora of the United States and Canada," 
page 873, there is described a new species of Triosteum 
by Mr. Bicknell, In 1900 a scarlet-fruited Triosteum was 
found at the Forest of Arden, Joliet, 111. This was men- 
tioned to several botanists, and considered merely a freak 
in coloring of the 3xllowMruited T. perfoliatum. Finding 
the plants again this fall, 1904, I collected fruits for 
planting but made no herbarium specimens. I would 
like to ask if other readers of the Botanist have found 
this form, and under what conditions, and also what is 
the color of the fruit of T. angusti folium. — H, C. Sicee/s, 
Joliet, 111. 
Color and Insects. — It often becomes a nice question 
to decide whether color is of use to the flower in pollina- 
tion or not. At first thought w^e might be inclined to say 
that the colors of all flowers have been developed with 
regard to visiting insects, but when we consider the 
bright colors of some of the staminate and pistillate 
cones of pines, none of w^hich are insect pollinated and 
none of whose ancestors ever have been, the use of the 
color is not apparent. The catkins of the wind-pollinated 
poplars are also often highly colored, especially in the 
cottonwoods. We seem forced to the conclusion that in 
many instances color is merely incidental, just as the sky 
is blue and the grass green. 
