On 1 October 1974 we received for identification from Mr. Andrew M. Bruce, of Newport News, Virginia, a solanaceous vine, which he found on the banks of the James River in his home city. The specimen was identified as Salpichroa origanifolia (Lam.) Baillon (Solanaceae).
Interest and enthusiasm for the skills and crafts of by-gone days is growing throughout the country, and throughout the world, even in the so-called developing countries. Spinning, weaving, and dyeing, all based on hand skills, are being encouraged, in the midst of an age of technology that has threatened to bring them to an end.
This most informative book has for its principal purpose the tracing of the origins of the names of plants. The author points out that plant names were first applied for convenience in making reference to plant varieties used for human food, for animal fodder, for medicine, or even for decorative purposes. Some plants were used in primitive religious rites or in witchcraft, and their present-day names may be reminiscent of such usage. Some, like lizard’s tail, were named for their resemblances to familiar things. Some were named for their habitat, some for mythological characters, some for saints (or sinners).
In 1955, the Carnegie Museum published “Orchids of Western Pennsylvania” by the senior authors. In 1962, Castanea printed “Additions to the Orchids of Western Pennsylvania,” in which we were concerned mainly with bringing up to date the records of the orchid collections in the Carnegie Museum Herbarium. The present treatment is an attempt to indicate the contemporary state of our understanding of the orchids in our region. “Our region” should be interpreted as western Pennsylvania to the eastern borders of Fulton, Huntingdon, Centre, Clinton, and Potter counties, hereinafter written “Western Pennsylvania.”
Earl Core is a botanist; but he is also a very well-known person, to many people, in many areas of the world. He has also been a Mayor, a husband, an Editor, a father, a historian, an explorer, an author—and too many other things to list here. To say that Earl Core is a man of many interests and abilities is to seriously understate the case.