6o4  Obituary.  {a^Sim' 
(4)  What  suggestions  do  you  offer  as  to  the  character  of  the  regulations 
that  should  be  prescribed  by  the  Treasury  Department  to  prevent  fraud? 
Yours  respectfully, 
George  M.  Beringer, 
Chairman. 
William  McIntyre, 
Robert  England, 
Rush  P.  Marshall, 
Joseph  W.  England, 
Secretary. 
Committee  on  Alcohol  Legislation. 
Philadelphia,  November  1,  1894. 
OBITUARY. 
William  Silver  Thompson  died  at  his  home  in  Waverly,  near  Baltimore, 
Md.,  on  Wednesday  evening,  October  3r,  1894.  He  was  a  member  of  the  drug 
firm  of  Andrews  &  Thompson,  and  was  at  one  time  president  of  the  Maryland 
College  of  Pharmacy.  He  was  also  a  member  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical 
Association,  the  Maryland  Historical  Society  and  the  Maryland  Academy  of 
Sciences.  The  deceased  had  been  a  druggist  fifty- five  years.  He  was  born  in 
New  Castle  County,  Del.,  in  1823,  and  went  to  Baltimore  to  engage  in  busi- 
ness when  he  was  sixteen  years  of  age. 
The  Maryland  College  of  Pharmacy  passed  suitable  resolutions  concerning 
the  deceased. 
Dodder. — These  plants,  belonging  botanically  to  the  genus  Cuscuta,  are 
among  the  most  troublesome  of  parasitic  weeds  to  the  gardener  and  farmer  in 
the  Old  World.  Some  of  the  species  have  become  so  destructive  in  French 
agriculture  and  horticulture,  that  the  Prefect  of  one  of  the  large  provinces, 
Charente-Inferieure,  has  issued  instructions,  which  are  circulated  freely  among 
cultivators,  making  it  obligatory  on  every  one  to  destroy  the  plants  wherever 
seen.  The  mandate  is  accompanied  by  descriptions  by  which  the  cultivators 
may  know  the  pests  as  scon  as  they  have  begun  their  growth.  It  is  remarkable 
that  the  plant  is  an  annual,  and  commences  its  growth  by  seed  in  the  ground 
as  ordinary  plants  do  ;  but  after  they  find  something  to  attach  themselves  to, 
they  draw  their  sustenance  from  the  host  plant,  and  then  the  connection 
between  the  plant  and  the  soil  dries  up,  and  the  plant  is  completely  severed 
from  its  terrestrial  connections.  The  plant  belongs  to  the  natural  order  of 
Convolvulacece,  that  is  to  say,  the  section  to  which  the  common  morning-glory 
belongs,  and  some  of  these,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  common  moon-flower,  have 
warty  excrescences  along  their  stems  which  some  have  supposed  to  be  young, 
abortive,  aerial  rootlets.  A  recent  communication  to  a  scientific  society  con- 
siders these  excrescences  to  be  incipient  haustoria,  which  is  the  name  given  to 
the  little  suckers  which  are  thrown  out  from  the  dodder,  and  which  penetrate  the 
host  plant  and  furnish  food  to  the  parasite.  In  other  words,  it  might  be  stated 
that  these  morning-glories  are  in  an  incipient  state  of  evolution  toward  the 
parasitic  condition. — Median's  Monthly,  for  November,  i8g$. 
