NOTES AND NEWS. 35 



The various species of Rhododendron that are in common cultiva- 

 tion in England are made the subject of an interesting and instructive 

 article in a recent issue of The Garden. Six American species are 

 described and a beautiful colored plate given of RJiododeridron Vaseyi. 



Have you ever watched the Evening Primrose open its flowers at 

 early evening? If not, just improve the next opportunity to do so. 

 At first a long slit appears in the calyx, and then the reflex action 

 begins, very slowly at first, gradually increasing until the sepals are 

 about at an angle of 450, when they suddenly drop to their places 

 beside the stem. After the sepals are in position the petals slowly 

 expand. It may take half an hour to see the whole operation. — 

 James A. Graves., Susquehanna, Pa. 



On my way up through Northern California, Oregon and Wash- 

 ington, the train rushed by great clumps of Lomaria spicant, an old 

 Alaskan friend. When we did stop long enough at the Shasta Soda 

 Spring for the passengers to taste the delicious water, it was maddening 

 to see numerous signs forbidding us to pick ferns or flowers. After 

 the dry brown vegetation of the late spring in southern valleys, it 

 was so refreshing to travel day after day through the cool green forests 

 of the north, where the great amount of moisture preserves the tender 

 green of the young shoots. Joining the Canadian Pacific road at Mis- 

 sion Junction, Glacier was our first stop. It was the first of June, but 

 great patches of snow still lay in sheltered nooks; the paths were under 

 water, and our efforts to reach the mass of green ice, so tantalizingly 

 near, were of no avail, as the bridge had been crushed into sharp- 

 pointed waves by a recent flood, and yet two varieties of Phegopteris 

 {P. dryopteris and P. Phegopteris they seemed to be) had bravely 

 come out, though the other ferns were still in tight curls. With 

 three engines panting along, we slowly climbed through wonder- 

 ful scenery to Banff (altitude about 5,000 feet), where I found 

 four orchids (one the Arethusa, the others new to me), a purple clematis 

 — an old Irish friend, the Pinguicula — a yellow Fumitory, scarlet Cas- 

 tilleias, several varieties of Smilacina and many other flowers, but 

 not one fern. A resident told me the "rock fern " {Poly podium vul- 

 gare I think) was the only one that grew there. In Maryland in 

 July, Asplenium ebeneiun was unusually fine. And now on Cape Cod, 

 I have found a crazy colony of remarkably fine Botrychium ternatiim 

 growing in a cranberry bog! Some of the B. dissectuin is so fine it 

 looks like lace — many of the specimens have two fertile segments, one 

 has three, with an attempt at a fourth. In another bog the Droscra 

 filiformis is busily at work on its entomological collection, while 

 another Drosera which seems to be the intermedia, is more sparingly 

 represented.— .£"^zV// Bates, Dennis, Cape Cod, Mass. 



