BOTTLE-BRUSH PLANTS

bottle-brush plants, a genus of australian plants, known botanically as _callistemon_, and belongiug to the myrtle family (myrtaceae). they take their name from the resemblance of the head of flowers to a bottle-brush. they are well known in cultivation as greenhouse shrubs; the flower owes its beauty to the numerous long thread-like stamens which far exceed the small petals. _callistemon salignus_ is a valuable hard wood. bottlenose whale (_hyperoodon rostratus_), a member of the sperm-whale family, which is an inhabitant of the north atlantic, passing the summer in the spitzbergen seas and going farther south in winter. it resembles the sperm-whale in possessing a large store of oil in the upper part of the head, which yields spermaceti when refined; on this account, and also for the sake of the blubber, which supplies an oil almost indistinguishable from sperm-oil, this whale became the object of a regular chase in the latter half of the 19th century. in length these whales vary between 20 ft. and 30 ft.; and in colour from black on the upper surface in the young to light brown in old animals, the under-parts being greyish white. there is no notch between the flukes, as in other whales, but the hinder part of the tail is rounded. bottlenoses feed on cuttle-fishes and squills, and are practically toothless; the only teeth which exist in the adult being a small pair at the front of the lower jaw, concealed beneath the gum during life. examples have frequently been recorded on the british coasts. in november 1904 a female, 24 ft. long, and a calf 15 ft. long were driven ashore at whitstable. (see cetacea.)