I JO THE PLANT WORLD. 



chiefly with spruce, fir-balsam and arborvitae. Since that time the 

 lichen has spread all over the island, and the trees not dead already 

 are rapidly dying, or are alive only in the topmost branches. The 

 spectacle, especially in the densely overgrown interior of the island, 

 is now doleful in the extreme; everywhere dead branches heavily 

 festooned with the long gray beard of lichen. In which order the 

 cause and effect of this transforming change I cannot say. I am not 

 aware that the lichen referred to is parasitic ; that is to say, I doubt if 

 it draws any nutriment from the tree on which it grows. It seems 

 rather to " smother" the host by so completely covering the bark of 

 the trunk and branches with its manifold fibres that the tree gains no 

 access to air and moisture, nor is given any opportunity to send out 

 foliage. On the other hand, the trees may be dying from the very 

 fact of their growing so closely together that sufficient light does not 

 reach them, and so in a measure they are "smothering" each other, 

 and the Usiica merely comes in and overgrows branches already 

 wholly or partially dead. The latter supposition seems untenable, 

 however, because trees along the shore on the edge of the forest, 

 where they have plenty of air, bear the same growth of Usnea. Ex- 

 posed trees like the latter generally are most overgrown on the side 

 of the prevailing wind. 



Gray Memorial Botanical Chapter, Agassiz Association. 



THE SWEET WOODRUFF {Asperiila odorata L.). 



By Byron D. Halsted. 



THE charming little erect galium-like plant named above is, 

 according to the books, a rare species in the United States. 

 In Britton and Brown's Illustrated Flora the only locality 

 recorded is "Waste places New Brunswick, N. J.," reported 

 by the writer some years ago. 



It may be of interest to state that the place where this fugitive 

 from Europe is at home is in a wooded ravine about one and one-half 

 mile from New Brunswick, and that while having furnished speci- 

 mens annually to many herberizing students, the stock has steadily 

 increased until now there are possibly two square rods of ground 

 literally covered with the Asperula, with a few outlying struggling 

 clumps. 



It is also to be noted that during the past winter the trees have 

 been cut away, letting in the sun and the new conditions of greater 

 dryness of the surface soil, etc. With the clearing of the forest it is 



