EDITORIAL 



The attention of our readers is directed to Mr. Coville's article 

 on "The Fairy-Ring Mushroom," in another part of this number. 

 From this it appears that there are several c[uestions concerning its 

 life -history that are still unaswered. Will not some one undertake to 

 make these observations and report the results to Plant World. 



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The series of articles by Mr. Charles Louis Pollard on the " Fami- 

 lies of Flowering Plants," which appeared in the last volume of Plant 

 World, was discontinued at the end of the Monocotyledons. It was 

 the author's intention to treat the Dicotyledons in a similar manner 

 and bring the whole out in book form, but the series has proved so 

 acceptable to our readers, that Mr. Pollard has consented to present 

 it first in our pages. The first article, beginning with the lowest 

 Dicotyledons, will probably appear in the January issue, and each 

 subsequent number will contain an installment of two or more pages. 

 The sequence will be in accord with the latest ideas on plant classifi- 

 cation, and each article will be fully illustrated with original draw- 

 ings. This series will be the first popular presentation of the modern 

 classification in the English language, and will be an invaluable aid 

 to the amateur or young student who would become acquainted with 

 the families of flowering plants. 



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In Science for November 4th, Mr. Gerritt S. Miller has an article 

 on "An Instance of Local Temperature Control of the Distribution 

 of Mammals," that is also full of suggestions for the botanist. The 

 so-called "boreal islands" are restricted areas, often in the form of 

 sphagnum or tamarack swamps that occur hundreds of miles south of the 

 boreal life zone. They support a flora and fauna of distinctively northern 

 types, and the question arises as to how the plants and animals can 

 show such seeming indifference to temperature. Mr. Miller's obser- 

 vations were made in a rock-slide at the foot of Massanutten Mountain, 

 Warren county, Virginia, where he found the mean temperature, dur- 

 ing two weeks of August and September, to be 57.8". On comparing 

 this with the range of normal mean temperature of the six hottest con- 

 secutive weeks in the extreme northern zone, which is from 57° to 64°, 

 it is found that "the mean temperature of the station coincided with 

 that of the life zone " to which it belonged. 



We would suggest to such of our readers as have opportunity 

 for studying these boreal islands, that they make a series of careful 

 observations of temperature, together with list of the northern plants. 



