232 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



tain list, unless some one can show a specimen of that species from 

 the region in question. — Edward L. Greene, Creswell, Colorado. 



The Michigan Trillium described in the July number of the Ga- 

 zette I have found here several times, and always associated with T. 

 grandifioruni. Judging by the comf)any it keeps I long since regard- 

 ed it as only a freak of T. grandifioruni. During the spring specimens 

 of it w^ere sent to me from Lockport, N. Y., by Prof. A. B. Evans, and 

 afterward that gentleman informed me he had again found it, and 

 that it grew from the roots of T. grandifiorum. It is not entitled to 

 rank as a variety, being, as Mr. Smith says, a lusus naturae. — 



S. H. Wright, Penn Vmu X. Y. 



Melanthium ViRGiNicuii. — An article in a recent number of the 

 BoT. Gazette on Melanthium Jlrginicum, brings to my mind that, 

 about 12 years ago, it was abundant in this vicinity, but is now rarely 

 seen. The reason of this is that the places where it grew have been 

 cultivated and grazed so as to destroy it. This summer I found it, 

 May 1, in Greenwood Co., Kansas, very abundant on a southern ex- 

 posure on sandstone hills. Again after the middle of June I observed 

 it quite abundant on line of Missouri and Kansas at west line of Cass 

 Co., Mo., apparently having just bloomed. — G. C. Broadhead, Pleas- 

 ant Hill, Mo. 



The Floating Fern. — It was announced a year ago that sterile spec- 

 imens of the Cerafopteris thalictroides had been found in Southern 

 Florida. I am now able to offer complete specimens of this extraor- 

 dinary plant as jiart of my fourth fascicle of Southern plants, and 

 also of a fascicle of twelve Floridian Ferns which I have prepared to 

 meet the wants of numerous applicants. The specimens for these 

 sets have been prepared with much care, nearly all having roots, 

 without which specimens of Floridian ferns are quite incomplete. 

 The giant Acrostichuni is represented by sections of the sterile and 

 fertile fronds. 



The Ceratoptcris being extremely variable, I shall give two or three 

 plants for a specimen and in each specimen shall endeavor to illus- 

 trate its peculiar mode of propagation, which is by marginal buds, 

 exactly as in Bryopliylliun. These arise from old sterile fronds, very- 

 rarely from fertile ones, the latter being erect, while the former most- 

 ly float. From Prof. Eaton's article relative to this fern it would be 

 inferred that the Ceratopteris roots like Sparganiuni and Pontederia. 

 Where I found it, somewhere in the vast inundated prairie region 

 north of the Everglades, it was floating free (exactly like Pistia and 



