28 THE AAIERICAN BOTANIST 



a manner. The flowers of the familiar yellow dav lilv or 

 lemon lily {J/cuicrocallis flava) which, in spite of the lily part 

 of its name, is not a true lily, are also said to be eaten by the 

 Chinese. 



Much TravELLKd Fkrn Spores. — In a recent number 

 of Ecology, Douglas H. Cam])bell suggests, among other rea- 

 sons for assuming a land connection between the Hawaiian 

 Islands and other land areas in the Southern Pacific, that some 

 Hawaiian ferns are common to the two regions adding: "It 

 is difficult to conceiv;e any means of transport from distant 

 New Zealand or the mountains of Java and New Guinea to 

 the mountain forests of Hawaii which would enable the spores 

 of these delicate i)lants to survive the exposure of such a jour- 

 ney." The distance is four or five thousand miles, but we are 

 disposed to think this no unusual journev for fern spores. 

 The writer of this paragraph put on record in the fuvii Bulle- 

 tin for 1911, a much more marvellous occurrence in the same 

 line. Jsplcniuni altcnians whose haunts are in the Himalayas 

 and .Vhyssinia was found in Arizona \)\ James II. Ferriss, 

 (juite ten thousand miles away from an\- other known locality. 

 This is probably the record for long distance travelling by 

 fern spores. 



RiCD-RooT AND THE PiGS. — There is a difference in pigs, 

 notwithstanding the aphorism tliat "pigs is pigs." Harsh- 

 I)erger's "Pastoral P)olanv" notes that the red-root (Lacliiiaii- 

 f/ics finctoria) is eaten without liarni h\- l)lack pigs bul that it 

 invariably poisons white ones. I'.xamination of the bones of 

 pigs poisoned in tliis wav shows iheni to have been colored a 

 reddish-pink. The plant ranges from Massachusetts to Florida 

 growing in coastal bogs and in this region white pigs are con- 

 scfjuently in the minoritv. The same \-ohune records a similar 

 connection between wliite cattle and sheej) and the common 

 St. John's wort (Hypcrciiim perforatum) . If such animals 



