B O TAXICA L GAZETTE. 



a shallow cell, then a ring (run from the turn table) of Bell's cement, 

 of one or two coats is all sufficient. This cement you may make 

 )Ourselves by dissolving shellac in strong alcohol. It has the very 

 great merit of drying very quickly and of resisting the action of 

 glycerine, the last a most important quality. Put then your Solorina 

 or other like object in the Farrants medium, with or without cell, 

 and cover it with thin glass, put on so as to drive the air out hy press- 

 ing down one side first and then slowly lowering the other to the hor- 

 izontal, and under the gentle pressure of a wire clamp allow it to 

 harden. Next remove the exuding surplus medium and in a few 

 hours run from a brush a coat of Bell's cement around the edge of 

 the cover and your slide will be done. These processes are more 

 simple than they appear from a description. Carbolized or camphor 

 water is also a good medium for mounting spores or sections of lich- 

 ens and fungi in. 



As for instruments; whilst I do not regard the turn-table or the 

 section holder as essential, I do consider them as most important aids. 



One other point. To clean glass covers I fill a small wide mouthed 

 bottle with strong sulphuric acid, then one by <7/7r.dip in my covers; 

 then they arc thoroughly coated with ihe acid, then after remaining in 

 the acid several hours I pour it off, and by repealed wasliing in clean 

 water remove most of the acidity, then 1 put in Labarraques solution, 

 and after a i^f^ hours in this I pour it off and wash the bottle and 

 glass with two or three waters and the covers are clean. To keep 

 them so. 1 put in clean water, and cork the bottle. And to use the 

 covers you have merely to dry them and ihey are ready for service. 



In the above, hastily written, simple statements I have advanced 

 little or nothing new, but have given the modes my own experience 

 has approved, without regard to the sources whence they were de- 

 rived. It is however fair, that I should state my attentiim was called 

 to the great value of Bell's cement and Farrants medium by my 

 friend, Prof. Barbeck, of Philadelphia, a most accomplished crypto- 

 gamic botanist. — J. T. Rothrock. 



Pteris AQUiLiNA. — I have received from Mr. F. A. White, an es- 

 teemed Florida correspondent, a specimen of Pteris aquilina, var. 

 caudata, which measures 13 feet and 4 inches from the base of the 

 stipe to apex of frond. The stalk measures from i/^ to i inch in cir- 

 cumference in its present dried state, and is exactly 6 feet in length, 

 thus leaving 7 feet and 4 inches as the length of the frond. The first 

 internode is 22 inches, the 2d, \()% inches, the 3d, 10%' inches with a 

 corresponding decrease up to the i6th internode which measures only 

 ^2 an inch, the apex measuring 2 inches, and the remaining measure- 

 ments being taken up by the spaces occupied by the bases of the con- 

 necting stalks of the primary divisions. 



As the primary divisions were taken off to admit of folding the 

 stalk and rachis for mailing without breaking, I can only guess at the 

 probable breadth of the frond; but as the frond of the common brake 

 is nearly triangular in outline, and generally quite as broad at the base 



