1909] Brewster,— Skunk Cabbage 63 
macrosporie sculpture of the spore wall as seen in the thin sections 
prepared by the methods described above. Moreover their algal 
nature appears quite excluded by the fact that highly modified remains 
of wood have been found intermingled with the supposed Algae. It 
is not conceivable that delicate algal structures should have been pre- 
served by the hypothetical bituminous matrix, while the much more 
resistant. fragments of wood, should have suffered carbonification. 
The supposed Algae so far studied in this connection belong to the 
genera ''hylax, Pila and Reinschia. 
It seems highly probable as the result of these observations, that the 
bituminous matter found in Boghead and similar coals, as well as in 
oil-shales, etc., is rather a product of the modification of the natural 
waxy or cutinoid infiltration of the outer coats of innumerable spores 
(microspores as well as macrospores), than the product of animal or 
algal decay. ‘The results here indicated seem further to overthrow 
the sapropelie or gelosic hypothesis of the formation of certain coals, 
and of petroleum proposed in Europe and to a certain extent adopted 
in this country. 
PHANEROGAMIC LABORATORIES OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY, 
9th March, 1909. 
OCCURRENCE OF THE SKUNK CABBAGE IN AN 
UNUSUAL PLACE. 
WILLIAM BREWSTER. 
Tur Skunk Cabbage is rarely met with, I believe, in other than 
low-lying and more or less swampy localities. At Concord, Massa- 
chusetts, however, there is a solitary plant of this species which has 
not only existed, but positively flourished, for a number of years, ina 
somewhat elevated and exceptionally dry situation on Ball’s Hill. 
This long, narrow, gently curving ridge is of glacial origin and com- 
posed almost wholly of fine yellowish sand and coarse reddish gravel. 
It is everywhere densely wooded, chiefly with second-growth oaks 
intermingled with white and pitch pines. Beneath these trees the 
surface soil, although somewhat enriched with leaf mould, is so gen- 
