. The American botanist : a monthly journal for the plant lover. Botany. NOTE and COMMENT White Horsemint.—Several years ago, one rather wet summer, while doing field work in botany, the writer came upon a big- bunch of the wild purple horsemint {Monarda fistidosa ) which was snow white. The leaves were just a shade lighter green than other bunches growing about, but the blos- soms were white as snow with not a hint of color showing either in bud or full grown blooms. The flowers were ex- amined daily until all buds had bloomed and died without showing color. The white mint did not appear the
. The American botanist : a monthly journal for the plant lover. Botany. NOTE and COMMENT White Horsemint.—Several years ago, one rather wet summer, while doing field work in botany, the writer came upon a big- bunch of the wild purple horsemint {Monarda fistidosa ) which was snow white. The leaves were just a shade lighter green than other bunches growing about, but the blos- soms were white as snow with not a hint of color showing either in bud or full grown blooms. The flowers were ex- amined daily until all buds had bloomed and died without showing color. The white mint did not appear the following year and the question still remains, what did it?—Mrs. James Edzciu Morris, Arthur, Illinois. [This is undoubtedly a case of albinism of which many exist in both plants and animals. It is due to a lack of some factor which causes pigmentation. It is rarely found in flowers whose colors depend upon definite colored corpuscles in the cells but is not uncommon in those colored by cell sap. Albino flowers seldom if ever revert to the normal colored form, and usually their seeds produce albinos like themselves.—Ed.] PuFFBALLS FOR NosEBLEED.—Mrs. J. D. Tuttlc, Marl- boro, N. H., notes that the ''smoke" from the puffball is useful in stopping bleeding from the nose, being simply puffed into the nose. The "smoke" of course, consists of myriads of puff- ball spores and in all probability stops the flow of blood much as other powdered substances might do. A physician to whom the cure was mentioned said it was harmless, at least, but this latter statement may be open to doubt. It is surmised that cer- tain eye troubles may be caused by spores of the puft'ball get-. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Binghamton, N. Y. : Willard N. Clute & Co.
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectbotany, bookyear1901
