The parent bulb sends out one or more thick rhizomes which grow outward if the bulb is at the normal depth, downward if the bulb is too near the surface of the ground and the new bulbs are formed by the shortening of the outer end and the growth and thickening of the scales of the rhizome. Both bulbs and corms may be regarded as rhizomes modified to suit peculiar conditions, such as a long, dry, heated period alternating with a short, rainy period. A plant to survive under such conditions must be able to start up very quickly as soon as the rains come, and flower and mature its seeds before the drouth again overtakes it. A large amount of food material must be stored up by the plant in order to do this, and the food material must be kept from drying or burning up during the heated period. Bulbs and corms, protected as they usually are by dry and coriaceous coverings, answer these requirements and are usually abundant in localities where these conditions obtain. Bulb and corm plants are also well fitted to live in dense woods where the light is soon shut off in the Spring by the expanding leaves of the trees. They are able to spring up very early, flower and ripen seeds before the light is shut off. The food supply which enables them to do this is often protected by acrid or poisonous principals developed in the bulb or corm. Pepper-root (Dentaria laciniata Muhl.) and Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum [L.] Torr.) are examples. Crown plants, while not true geophytes, are often closely related to rhizome plants and may be regarded as transitional. They are formed by the freezing back of the upright stem to the surface of the ground, and the survival of the short stem beneath the surface until the next Spring when it sends out branches from adventitious buds. In this way several branches are sent up where there was one before, and, as this crowds and injures the plant, these branches usually move out some distance from the base of the parent plant before coming to the surface. The connection with the main stem is often severed, and thus many new plants are formed. All this rarely takes place in the Spring but has been shifted back to late Summer or Fall by the parent plant. Often a food supply is stored up for the young plants by the parent. Helianthus tuberosus L. is a good example. Vegetative propagation is brought to its highest development in this class and they become our worst weeds. NOTES ECONOMIC AND TAXONOMIC ON THE SAW BRIER, SMILAX GLAUCA. W. A. KELLERMAN. (Plate 4.)