168 
piled list of the plants he had for many years noted as growing on 
this island, either native, naturalized, or generally cultivated. On 
all his trips and excursions he was wont to gather whatever he 
thought would interest his associates of the Club. Of late years he 
has been unable to attend our meetings, but all the older members 
will affectionately cherish his memory. 
$175. Asplenium Filix-femina, Var. laciniatum, Moore.*— 
In the BuLtetin for April, 1876, I mentioned receiving some sterile 
specimens of a fern that I thought I had succeeded in identifying 
as the above variety of the Lady-fern. The specimens were found 
by Miss Eliza Hosmer, in Monmouth Co., New Jersey. The next 
season, at my request, Mr. Guilford, of Red Bank, N. J., visited the 
locality and succeeded in finding two plants which he sent to me. 
These plants have been growing nearly two seasons between other 
forms of the same species, and I have just succeeded in securing a 
fertile frond by which I am able to confirm my previous judgment. 
The plants are small and very peculiar in their appearance. The 
fronds are finely laciniate, and uniformly very irregular in outline. 
The pinne are extremely variable in length, some of them termina- 
ting abruptly, others being nearly one-sided—but all laciniate—as if 
from an injury. These peculiarities may be seen even in the young 
fronds when unrolling. 
Iam not inclined to recognize the so-called varieties of this 
protean species as we find them growing with us, but this form cer- 
tainly has a better claim to be considered a variety than any with 
which I am acquainted. Gro. E. DAvENPORT. 
Boston, Aug. 6, 1877. 
§ 176. Publications—1. American Journal of Science and Arts, 
July and August: Habenaria (Platanthera) rotundifolia, proves to 
be a true Orchis, having a pouch to the pollinia disks, and Pursh’s 
name, O. rotundifolia, is the proper one. Has any one yet observed 
whether our H. viridis has its glands protected by pouches? Prof. 
Farlow gives interesting cryptogamic notes, particularly on Stahl’s 
study of the Lichens. Dr. Gray has an interesting article on the 
extraordinary petioles of the cotyledons in Megarrhiza Californica, 
Torr. On germinating some fresh seeds, Dr. Gray found that the 
body of the seed in its shell was raised well out of the soil upon 
what. seemed a well developed radicle, but the cotyledons never 
expanded. After the lapse of about a fortnight the plumule came 
separately out of the soil. The plumule had come forth from the 
base of what appeared to be an elongated radicle (of two or three 
inches in length), and below this the thickening of the root, which 
acquires enormous dimensions in old plants, had already commenced. 
A large amount of the nourishing matter stored in the cotyledons 
had been carried down to the root and used in its growth as well as 
in that of the plumule, The latter came from a cleft at the very base 
of the seeming radicle, which otherwise appeared to be solid. But on 
cutting it across toward the base it was found to be tubular, and when 
* Described and figured in Moore’s ‘‘ Nature Printed Ferns,” Vol Th; p- 41, 
Pl. lix.-A; also in Lowe’s ‘‘ New and Rare Ferns,” p. 130, Pl. lv.-B. 
