ioo BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



vine at the base, and, by detatching it for a long distance from the 

 tree to which it clung, to bring down, if possible, the flower-bearing 

 portion. Though a barbarous proceeding we nerved ourselves to it 

 and our efforts were crowned with abundant success. 



This plant, as your readers all probably know, is not described 

 in Gray's "Manual," fifth edition, but whether its discovery in the 

 Dismal Swamp in 1876, on the occasion above mentioned, was its 

 first appearance north of the southern boundary line of Virginia, I 

 do not know. However that may be, I thought it might interest 

 some to know that it had been found at the northern border of the 

 swamp and within ten miles of Norfolk. — Lester F. Ward. 



Proterogyn in Sparganium eurycarpum. — In a marsh 



near the Eastern Branch of the Potomac I found a few days since 

 the finest patch of Sparganium eurycarpum that I ever saw, the 

 developed white blossoms being conspicuous from a distance. On ap- 

 proaching and examining them I perceived that the plant was very 

 obviously proterogynous. The two distinct states were so clearly 

 marked that they gave the appearance of two kinds of plants. 

 Those on which the fertile heads were developed and the stigmas 

 ready to receive pollen invariably had all the staminate heads unde- 

 veloped, while those in which the staminate heads were developed 

 had in all cases commenced to foi m fruit. Still a third state oc- 

 curred in which an thesis was entirely past in both kinds of heads 

 and large heads of fruit had formed. While the order of develop- 

 ment oi the pistillate and staminate heads was always the same, 

 abundance of plants existed in both states, so that fertilization was 

 possible, yet a careful search failed to reveal a single plant in which 

 the time of expansion of the male and female flowers was synchron- 

 ous — i. e., in which self-fertilization could have taken place. — Lester 

 F. Ward. 



Contributions to North American Botany, by Asa Gray: 



Proc. Am. Acad. Vol. XVII. — It is almost impossible to appreciate 

 the amount of labor represented by this contribution. In his elabo- 

 ration of the vast family of Composites as displayed in North 

 America, Dr. Gray's work has been of the most laborious and in- 

 tricate kind. No living botanist could have conducted us half so 

 well through such a bewildering maze of forms and synonyms, and 

 the consultation of type specimens in the older herbaria has not in 

 all cases shed a flood of light. Probably Aster and Solidago are two 

 of the most vexatious genera of this great family as all botanists 

 will testify in whose herbaria are lurking many unplaceable forms. 

 The first part of this paper is devoted to the record of some of the 

 results of the study of these difficult genera in the older herbaria 

 and their difficulty can best be appreciated when Dr. Gray, who 

 has seen more type-specimens of the species and has given more 

 time to the systematic study of these genera than any one testifies 



