247 
means, with a desire to afforest parts of the island, imported from 
England 9,000 seedling Larches, and from Illinois 30,000 Scotch 
Firs, and planted them upon twenty acres of land. After I 
wrote for information, Mr. Coffin visited the planted tract and 
made a thorough search; in that exploration he discovered twenty 
patches in which the Zycca was growing; it was about evenly 
distributed over the whole tract, and was as abundant among the 
Firs brought from Illinois as among the Larches from England. 
The seed of the rica is so well protected that it will endure 
much exposure; this fact favors a theory that the plant has been 
introduced by man’s agency, and that it has either been brought 
by settlers as an ornamental plant, and escaped from cultivation, 
or has been sown by seeds brought on in seed-grain, or among 
the roots of trees. 
But in opposition to this theory, it has never been found in 
the vicinity of dwellings, nor near cultivated grounds. 
O. R. WILLIS. 
Unusual Leaf-Forms in Platanus occidentalis. 
I send some leaf specimens taken from a Plane tree near 
Houston. Compared with the usual form of the leaf, most of the 
leaves on this particular tree are but slightly toothed, while a 
large proportion are only pointed at the three lobes— the rest of 
the margin entire. Has this peculiar sport of the Plane been no- 
ticed before? It is another instance of the diversity in the form 
and outline of leaves belonging to a single species. 
As this Plane (P. occidentalis) is easily propagated by cut- 
tings (more readily than its oriental kin) there is reason to be- 
lieve that a fixed variety can be secured. 
G. C. NEALLEY. 
Index to Recent American Botanical Literature. 
Agaricus campestris. Worthington G. Smith. (Gard. Chron., 
xXxvi., pp. 492, 493; two figures.) 
_A popular account of the field mushroom, with excellent 
illustrations of its structure and appearance. ‘ 
Beginnings of Natural History in America. G. Brown Goode. 
‘(Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, iii., pp. 35-105; reprinted.) 
This paper is the presidential address delivered at the sixth 
