THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 147 



sarily infer that royalty was more in need of this remedy than 

 the cc^mmoners, but rather that the plant was of more than 

 ordinary efficacy against the elusive pest. Judging from the 

 \irtues of oil of pennyroyal when used to keep off mosquitoes, 

 the royal part may not have been an exaggeration. — James C. 

 Nelson. 



Vitality of Gray Poloypody. — The little gray poly- 

 pody {Polypodiiiin iiicanmn) , whose habitat includes much of 

 the warmer part of the Western Hemisphere, is known in the 

 Southern States as the "resurrection fern" from its hal)it of 

 curling uj) during periods of drouth and reviving when mois- 

 ture is more abundant. In most of its range it grows on the 

 trunks and branches of trees, where it is deprived of moisture 

 for long periods and thus some such arrangement is necessary 

 t(j preserve it from extinction. Miss E. F. Andrews, who has 

 been experimenting with this plant with reference to its ablilty 

 to go without water, reports in Torreya that specimens re- 

 moved from its haunts and brought indoors remained in a 

 basement without water for seven months and spent another 

 seven months on the top of a bookcase in a study and yet 

 were able to revive when exposed to the rain. The fern is 

 aided in its resistance to drouth by an close covering of scales 

 most abundant on the under side of the leaves. In dry regions 

 a number of ferns adopt the polypody's method of escaping 

 drouth. The writer of this paragraph recalls being directed 

 to a certain rock ledge in Jamaica for a rare fern and finding 

 upon examination that a period of dry weather had dried the 

 vegetation into an unrecognizable mass. Collecting a supply 

 of the haylike debris, however, it was deposited in one of the 

 tin bath-tubs, with which English colonists are so fond of 

 ornamenting their sleeping rooms and when morning came, 

 there in the tub was as fine a lot of specimens as one w(Uild 

 wish to see. 



