83 



Fl!0RIDA. 



■ 



A Catalogue of a Collection of Plants made in East Florida during 

 the months of October and November, 182 1, by A. Ware. By 

 Thomas NuttalL (C.) 



In Am. Journ. Sci. and x\rts., i series, Vol. v. 1822. 

 List of the Plants growing spontaneously in the vicinity of Quincy, 

 Fla. By A. W. Chapman, M.D. (A.) 

 In Western Journ. Med. and Surg., Vo]. iii. (new series), 23 

 pp. Louisville, Ky., 1845. 



List of the Marine Algae collected by Dr. Edward Palmer on the 

 coast of Florida and at Nassau, Bahama Islands, March- 

 August, 1874. By D. C. Eaton. (B.) 

 8vo., pamphlet, pp. 6. New Haven, 1875. 

 An enumeration of some Plants, chiefly from the semi-tropical 

 regions of Florida, which are either new, or which have not 

 hitherto been recorded as belonging to the Flora of the Southern 

 States. By A. W. Chapman, M.D. (D.) 

 In Botan. Gazette, Vol. iii. Logansport, 1878. 

 Ferns of South Florida. (With notes on the species.) ' By A. P 

 Garber. 



In Bot. Gazette, Vol. iii, Logansport, 1878. 



W. R. G, 



N. L. B. 



The brittle Branches of Salix sericea, Marshall. — Has any one 



examined critically the " brittleness at the base " of the branches in 

 this willow, of which our text-books tell us ? It seems phenomenal, 

 though akin to the articulation we find in Ampe/opsis, Taxodium^ 

 Thnja and some others at the fall of the year. Here is a branch so 

 tough that we may use it like twine, and which separates as easily, by a 

 light tug, as we pull a feather from a bird ! It is not really ''brittle at 

 the base," for the base must mean either exactly at the junction with 

 the parent stem, or some indefinite point above. But the point of sepa- 

 ration is a little above the true " base," and always just at this point, 

 barely a hair*s breadth in width; and the breakage is always in a true 

 circle around the stem. It is evidently not a species of " brittleness '* 

 so much as a case of specific, incipient articulation. 



Thomas Meehan. 



A Suggestion. — Errors in the description of plants occur here 

 and there in our Manuals of Botany, owing for the most part, no 

 doubt, to the tendency of some species to vary from the typical 

 form. But it is surprising that there should be so great a discrep- 

 ancy in the diagnosis of Carex Novae-Angliae and C Emmonsii so far 

 as the color of their spikelets is concerned. Both Wood and Gray 

 state that the former has purplish spikelets and the latter green 

 ones ; whereas the reverse seems to be the rule. Out of a large 

 number of specimens of C. Novae-Angliae received from the moun- 

 tains of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts 

 not one so much as suggests a purplish spikelet. On the other hand, 

 C. Emmonsii always shows scales more or less purplish. Admitting 



