THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 5 



pitcher plant, sundews, linnaea, cypripediums, gentians, miter- 

 worts, gold-thread, trilliiims, wild buck-bean, marsh marigold, 

 dwarf cornel, clintonia, wild calla, grass of Parnassus, violets 

 and meadow rues. The most abundant ferns are the clayton, 

 cinanmon, sensitive, maiden hair, bladder fern {fragilis), lady 

 fern and botrychium {Virginianiun) . The swamp is rich in 

 mosses and lichens. 



The teachers of botany in ^Minneapolis have cei'tainly un- 

 dertaken a most fascinating and important work if only they 

 succeed in saving in a natural condition the wild things al- 

 ready established within the garden. One can hardly compre- 

 hend the result of extending its flora until it includes that of 

 the whole State. Not only the young people passing through 

 the schools, becoming- participants in the work, will be incalcul- 

 ably benefitted, but it will be of great pleasure and profit to 

 mature citizens also; for a bit of natural growth is a source of 

 greater delight to the true nature lover than the most beautiful 

 and most highly cultivated formal garden could ever be. 



Maiden, Mass. 



FALL FRUITING OF THE CINNAMON FERN. 



ALTHOUGH the cinnamon fern {Osmunda cinnainomca) 

 is one of our most abundant species, it is quite apparent 

 that we do not know all about it. It has an interesting 

 trait of fruiting in the autumn in the southern States, and as 

 yet no explanation of this peculiar habit has been given. That 

 it normally fruits in spring there can be little doubt. In 

 southern Louisiana I have thus found it in March, and Mr. 

 W. C. Dukes writes me that in the vicinity of Mobile, Ala., he 

 finds it in full fruit by the last of February, and occasionally 

 some fronds bv the middle of that month. In the same line 

 the observations of Mr. W. C. Steele for Florida indicate that 

 the plants fruits there in spring. It is among the earliest of our 



