Life History of Schizaea pusiila 



By Elizabeth G. Britton and Alexandrina Taylor 

 (With Plates i-6) 



The material on which these studies were based was collected 

 at Forked River, New Jersey, on the third of July, 1900. The 

 plants were abundant, but only half grown, the sporophylls being 

 only five centimeters high. They were found around the base 

 of small white cedars {^Chamaecyparis tliyoides) kept moist by 

 hummocks of SpJiagnum, and surrounded by Lycopodmm Caroli- 

 nianuin, Juncus pelocarpus, Drosera rohindifolia and Utriadaria 

 cleistogmna. Young plants were found, ranging from two to ten 

 millimeters in height, growing in depressions of moist sandy loam, or 

 even perched upon the roots of sedges and Sisyrincldtim Adanti- 

 ciini. Several sods were taken with the plants in various stages, 

 and a large number of young plants were collected and preserved 

 in alcohol. With a magnification of fifteen diameters, it was dis- 

 covered at the time of collection that they originated from a fila- 

 mentous protonema, consisting of a tangled mass of dark green 

 filaments, spreading around the base of the young circinate leaf, 

 and that these filaments were persistent, even after some of the 

 leaves were 10-15 mm. high. Entangled with the filaments, in 

 such a manner as to render it necessary to clean them with a 

 camel's-hair brush, there were three species of hepatics {Odonto- 

 schisma sphagni (Dicks.) Dumort ; Lophozia inflata (Huds.) M. A. 

 Howe ; and Cephalozia catenulata (Hiibn.) Spruce ; also a slender 

 fresh-water alga, Rhizoclonium hieroglyphiaim (Ag.) Kiitz. 

 [Issued 31 January.] 1 



