THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
71 
The grasses are all wind pollinated and modified for 
tliis purpose by having the anthers lightly balanced on 
long slender filaments, while the pistil produces two styles 
with long leatliery stigmas that easily catch any polleii 
floating by. Stamens and pistils are usually borne in the 
same flow'Cr, but cross-pollination is easily effected by one 
set of organs ripening before the other. In some species., 
as Indian corn, stamens and pistils are borne on different 
parts of the plant. Corn-silk is made up of the numerous 
styles and stigmas. A few species produce cleistogamous 
flowers. In Amphicarpum the fertile spikelets are born^ 
on slender runners at the base of the stems. 
The grasses spread rapidly by runners which push out 
from the base of the plant and after burrowing in the soil 
for some distance turn upwards and become erect stems. 
In this way a compact mat-like turf is soon formed. A 
few lay up stores of starch in tuber-like under-ground 
stems. The stems themselves are often rich in silica which 
makes them exceeding hard, 
RABBITS AND POTATO BEETLES AS BOTANISTS 
BY MARIA L. OWEN. 
LET Miss Gertrude Jekyll speak first. In her Wall 
and Water Gardens" she says, Rabbits seem to 
favour the Cruciferw. When I first grew the JEthionemas, 
forgetting their relationship to Iberis (cand^^tuft) I put 
them in a place accessible to rabbits; the rabbit being the 
better botanist, recognized them at once, much to my 
loss." Now my own experience. 
One summer day walking round my little flower beds 
I saw a potato beetle on a trumpet-tongue {Salpiglossis) 
plant. It passed through my mind that he had got lost, 
for there was no tomato, potato or any other plant of 
that famil)^ near, and after humanely and effectively stop- 
ping his mischief for all time, I thought no more of the 
matter. But the next day I saw another of the little 
striped pests on the same plant; then I roused up and 
said "This means something," so after treating him like 
