THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 21 



the further question whether dictionaries or botanical pubH- 

 cations are the most desirable mental food for the leading 

 lights in the Government's botanical corps. 



A Flowering Fern. — According to a bulletin of the 

 Botanical Department of Trinidad, it has long been rumored 

 that in that island there is a fern which, unlike all others, bears 

 true flowers on its fronds. The idea appears to have or- 

 iginated in this way: The common chickweed of the West 

 Indies — Drymaria cordata — has deciduous pedicels and these 

 are covered with a sticky substance which causes them to ad- 

 here to anything with which they come in contact. When the 

 seeds are ripe the pedicel loosens from the plant, carrying the 

 seed-pod, which looks much like a small flower, with it. This, 

 adhering to the fronds of ferns undoubtedly gave rise to the 

 reported occurrence of flowering ferns. 



The Species-Making Craze. — It has well been said 

 that the easiest way to secure the repeal of a bad law is to 

 strictly enforce it, and it may be added that the surest way 

 of showing the absurdity of the mania for making new species 

 is to allow the radical botanist to continue unchecked his 

 multiplication of forms. At first, we received the various 

 proposed species of hawthorn with proper attention ; now any 

 reference to hawthorns at meetings of botanists is likely to 

 produce only smiles. If, as Dr. Burgess insists, there are 

 eighty-one species of Aster where Dr. Gray found but two, 

 the conclusion is forced upon us that the early botanists were 

 but bungling students. The word create means to make some- 

 thing out of nothing. There is a suspicion fast gaining 

 ground that modern botanists are fairly entitled to be called 

 creators. In any event, by pushing the making of species 

 to extremes they have convinced the great body of plant 

 students that the old conception of a species is nearer right 

 than the new one. 



