38 THE PI^ANT WORI^D 



Briefer Articles. 



A BOTANISTS' MECCA. 



Not long ago I was interested in looking over the package of Hart's- 

 tongue, Phyllitis scolopendrium, (or Scolopendrium vulgare, as it is more 

 commonly known) preserved in the D. C. Eaton herbarium at Yale Uni- 

 versity, to note what a good proportion of our noted botanists have made 

 this fern an object of especial search at out-of-the-way Chittenango Falls, 

 Madison County, New York. There were fronds collected by Dr. Torrey, 

 and others by Clinton in 1863. Some were marked by the familiar initials 

 D. C. E. to indicate the late Professor Eaton's pilgrimage ; and still others 

 there were, collected by Dr. Underwood. Indeed, it was the collecting of the 

 Hart's-tongue here and in the Jamesville region nearby that aroused in 

 the latter botanist that interest in fern study which has made it his chosen 

 specialty. 



It seemed so likely that Dr. Gray from his home in Oneida County, 

 adjoining, must also have visited the Falls that I was prompted to in- 

 quire whether specimens of his collecting were to be found in the Gray 

 Herbarium at Harvard. This proved to be the case ; and I have since 

 learned from Mr. G. S. Miller, jr., of at least one visit Dr. Gray made to 

 the Falls in company with the former's grandfather. 



The whole region is one of extreme interest botanically, and only last 

 summer a party consisting of Dr. and Mrs. Britton and other members of 

 the Torrey Botanical Club, with Dr. Underwood as guide, paid the James- 

 ville locality a visit. It was here, too, that Paine made his investigations 

 on the rarity of the fern, in the early '60s; and it is safe to say that 

 many other botanists, besides numerous amateurs, of whose specimens 

 we have not such definite records, have enjoyed similar expeditions. 

 U. S. National Museum, Washiugtou, D. C. WiLLIAM R. Maxon. 



GERMINATION OF THE COCOANUT. 



As THE cocoanut comes to our markets it is deprived of its husk. This 

 husk is of a coarse fibrous structure and covers the nut so thickly that in 

 its original form the fruit is broadly oval, the nut occupying an excentric 

 position with the " eyes " directed toward the stem end of the fruit. In 

 its natural habitat the cocoa palm grows abundantly near the water, and 

 as the fruit falls from the tree it often floats about until it comes to rest 

 in some shallow place and there germinates. The husk not only makes 

 the fruit lighter, but probably serv^es under any condition by virtue of its 

 absorptive quality to keep the seed more moist and so facilitate germina- 

 tion. Many of the nuts imported in the husk for our work were germi- 



