58 
Plants Growing in Trees-— A long list might be made of the 
plants that domesticate themselves in trees. The elms of New Haven, 
Connecticut, fvirnish some interesting examples : currant bushes bear- 
ing fruit occur in many places, as on Hillhouse Avenue and the Col- 
lege grounds. A matrimony-vine {Lycium vulgare)^ flourishes in one 
of the huge trees in front of the Scientific School. I have seen goose- 
berry bushes in similar situations.* Grass often figures as an air- 
plant, and a hollow in a trunk, some fifteen feet from the ground, is 
filled with a beautiful growth of ferns. I refrain from giving the 
specific locality for fear the progressive aldermen may cut the tree 
down. 
J 
Henry Baldwin. 
Botanical Notes. 
Distribution of 
In a paper upon 
this subject in the Proceedings of the American Pliilosophical Society 
(Feb. 2, 1883, p. 610), Mr. George E. Davenport says : 
So far as now known, New York, Michigan, Florida, Vermont and 
California, in the order named, have the greatest number of species 
of ferns within their respective limits. 
In the first, second and fourth of these States, the number has, 
in all probability, reached, or very nearly reached, its maximum, 
while in the third and fifth it is likely to be largely increased, and those 
States, from their favorable situations, climate, and comparatively 
extensive, unexplored territory, will undoubtedly lead all other 
States in the future, Arizona and Texas alone being at all likely to 
compete with them for the highest place. 
If, however, we distribute our ferns according to the number of 
scj^uare miles of territory which each of the five first-named States 
contains, then Vermont will lead the others, her ratio being as i to 
every 226f square miles, that for New York as i to 814, Michigan i 
of territory. 
95i 
Taking the extremes of the territorial limits, excluding the District 
38i 
i 
pared with Pensylvania's i to 109^, Colorado's i to 4,2 c^o and Texas's 
I to 7,8781, square miles. 
If we take an average of the fern-flora for the different geograph- 
ical sections of the United States, on the basis of the present list, 
New England gives us an average of 40 species for each State, the 
Middle Atlantic States 40, the South Atlantic 27, the Gulf States 27^ 
^the Central States 25, the Pacific States 23, and the Territories 
an average of 19. 
The returns from most of the Territories are altogether too mea- 
gre at present to permit of any comparisons, and those already 
made will necessarily undergo considerable modification as the gaps 
in the lists for other States fill up. 
But, while no absolutely reliable comparisons can be made, nor the 
precise limits of each species be determined from the present incom- 
plete tables, we may ^certain from them with a tolerable degree of 
