An Enormous Flower

There are some flowers which approach the famous Victoria in size. At Kew they have an Aristolochia, A. Goldeana, a sort of "Dutchman's Pipe," with a flower which is eighteen inches in diameter. Such a "pipe "as this ought to make very happy the genuine lovers of the weed.

Seventeen Year Locusts

Prof. Riley notes that there are two distinct species of these. Each agrees with the other in every respect except that instead of seventeen years the other requires but thirteen to come to perfection. The seventeen-year is named Cicada septemdecim by Linnaeus; the thirteen, Cicada tridecim by Riley. We should fear that in a case where there was no distinction, some rascally dealers could readily impose one specimen for another on the unsuspecting purchasers.

Tree Flowering White Mignonette

It is just where we look for the rapid multiplication of easy common names that we find a new variety of the common Mignonette referred to as Reseda odorata prolifera alba.

Substitute For Quinine

There seems to be no doubt but that a species of " Sage Brush " which grows on the alkali plains of the West, Artemisia frigida, one of the wormwood family, has properties so nearly akin to quinine, that it may possibly take the place of real quinine. One teaspoonful of the extract is used in agues in a glass of hot lemonade, before the chill comes on.

A Hybrid Cotton Plant

The daily papers have accounts of a new cotton plant raised by hybridizing the Okra and the common cotton, To a botanist it seems doubtful that two genera like Hibiscus (okra) and Gossypium (cotton) should be successfully hybridized, though the genera are so closely related that such a union could not be pronounced impossible. Newspaper statements of such facts as these, however, generally require confirmation.

Opuntia Rafinesqui In Canada

This pretty hardy Cactus was recently found at Point Pelle, the most southerly point on the mainland in Ontario, by a little botanical party in which were Mr. Wm. Saunders, the entomologist, and Dr. Burgess, Professor Macoun and his son, an energetic young man of twenty years. Some other plants new to Canada were also found, among these the Tulip Poplar, Red Mulberry and the Nettle tree. The Tulip tree was very abundant.

Helianthus Maximiliani

In the description of this pretty sunflower in Meehans " Native Flowers and Ferns of the United States," Lawrence, Kansas, is given as about the most north ern point that the plant had been found up to that time. Professor J. C. Arthur, in his "Fifth Contribution to the Flora of Iowa," now notes that it has been found plentiful in Emmett County, Iowa, 300 miles north of Lawrence.