Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 October 1875 — Air-Plants. [ARTICLE]

Air-Plants.

Many are familiar with the fact that a sprig of the wild orpine or live-forever will retain its freshness’ arid often continue to grow for a considerable time when fastened to the wall or suspended in an upright position in places where it can have access to neither earth nor water. The plant belongs to the natural family Crassulaceie, many of the members of which fix themselves to dry rocks or walls where there is little or no soil. One species, the Bryopliyllum calycinum, is called the air-plant or leaf-plant, because a detached leaf will grow and even flower when hung up in a moist, warm atmosphere. The leaf thus suspended sends out little buds along its edges, and these develop into perfect plants, with roots and fibers of their own. When fully formed these plants may be separated from the parent leaf and are then capable of sustaining an independent life. Another species, having the same curious properties, grows in tropical countries, and is known to botanists as the verea crenata. Like our live-forever it has thick, succulent leaves, but it makes a much taller and handsomer plant, its spike of greenish flowers rising to a height of three feet. A single leaf of the verea hung in the window, or even thrown into a dark drawer, will, in the course, of a week or two, develop roots from tts base and become a growing plan). A cross section of a leaf will often do the same. The tenacious vitality of the plant is such that to dry specimens for the herbarium it is necessary first to kill them by immersion in hot water or the application of a hot iron.— Chicago Tribune. One morning at an early hour a huge wild-cat dashed through the front window of a Nevada hotel, made its way to the sleeping apartments and created a most terrible consternation among male and female boarders, whose fright was made wonderfully ludicrous by their general stampede in deshabille through all parts of the house. One young man awoke to find the huge monster almost within i reach of him, and with a wild shriek - called the landlady to his relief. The most laughable thing of all was that the affrighted crowd, some twenty in all, should have allowed the animal, after a half-hour’s rumination, to escape unscathed. Cape Cod liver oil is extensively,manufactured at Provincetown, Mass., from dogfish.