NOTES AND NEWS. in 



The Winter number of the Fern Bulletin marks a new departure 

 in the history of this very useful and interesting little magazine. A 

 Moss Department has been added, under the editorship of Dr. A. J. 

 Grout, and the aim is to help any one interested in the mosses to get 

 some knowledge of them without excessive labor or expense. The 

 editor will also try to identify specimens if accompanied by notes and 

 return postage. Besides the outfit for the study of mosses, Dr. Grout 

 gives a short, simple description of the Haircap mosses with illustra- 

 tion, and offers to supply specimens of four of the species for ten cents in 

 stamps. We cordially commend this department to all lovers of the 

 mosses, and hope it will be as cordially welcomed as the fern notes 

 have been in the past. — E. G. B. 



Dr. O. F. Cook, Mr. Charles Louis Pollard and Mr. Guy W. Col- 

 lins, of the U. S. National Museum, and Prof. E. L. Morris, of the 

 Western High School, D. C, left on March 5th for a six weeks' botan- 

 ical collecting trip among the Florida Keys. They go first to Key 

 West, where they will secure a small schooner and will then visit the 

 various Keys, and expect to reach Miami about April 5th. Dr. Cook 

 is commissioned to make a collection of alga;, which is to be sent to 

 the Omaha Exposition. The other members of the party will make 

 a general collection, including herbarium and various economic ma- 

 terial, and are also commissioned to obtain museum material for the 

 New York Botanical Garden. As this is a favorable season in 

 which to visit Southern Florida, it is expected that the party will bring 

 back valuable collections. — F. H. K. 



On a jardiniere stand by my desk is a genuine limestone cliff, 

 with crag and buttress, the former rising some eighteen or twenty 

 inches above the foundation, with a six-inch wing sloping off in the 

 rear to the brim of the platter on which it rests. Nature has roughly 

 chiseled two sides of the "peak," and here and there is a suggestion 

 of quartz. Although destitute of all save a lichen and a bit of dry 

 moss when put in place, a luxuriant growth is over it all at the pres- 

 ent date (February 16). A choice trio holds the fort. The Walking- 

 Leaf (Caviptosorus) spreads itself luxuriantly in ribbon designs of 

 green, enhanced by nature's daintest lace-work, Aspleniiivi Ruta- 

 miiraria, tucked in here and there ; a fine foil to both in cut and color 

 of frond is the pretty Asplenhim Trichomanes, which often attends the 

 other two. A great clump of this fern rests against the curving flank ; 

 the more delicate side iss2ies, however, are quite as attractive. A 

 stretch of Asplenium platyneuron extends along the opposite side and 

 outlines its straight, narrow fertile fronds against the perpendicular 

 face of the crag. Pellcsa atropurpurea is also here ; likewise that little 



