N. G. W., New Albany, Ind., says: " A friend of mine has a white rose that sent a young shoot with leaves on it from the center of one of the blooms.

How can this be explained?"

[The flower of a rose was predestined to be a branch. The petals of a rose might have been leaves. It may be described as an after-thought of nature to make a rose flower (or any flower, out of what should have been a leafy branch or shoot. Now sometimes nature is fickle, and in this case she was. After starting to make a branch, she concluded to make a rose flower; but before the rose flower was quite finished, she changed her mind again, and let the original branch grow.

It is such facts as these which give strength to what is known in botany as the science of morphology. - Ed. G. M].