296 The Botanical Gazette. [October, 



OPEN LETTERS. 



Where is the home of Calypso? 



I was much interested in Mr. BlancharcTs notes on this dainty plant 

 in the August number of this paper, for every botanist loves Calypso. 

 If abundance of individuals is to determine the true home of the 

 Calypso, then the Puget Sound region will easily bear the palm from 

 northern Vermont. Fifty or one hundred specimens in half a day 

 does not not seem at all impressive to me, for I have frequently gath- 

 ered bouquets of several hundred in a few hours; and only two years 

 ago I saw a boy selling bunches of ioo or more for ten cents, a fact 

 which speaks more for the abundance of the plant than for proper 

 local appreciation of its beauty. What is particularly interesting is 

 that the habit of Calypso here seems to differ very decidedly from its 

 habit in the east. The plant here never grows in Sphagnum bogs; in- 

 deed from my expedience with it, I would nearly as soon look for it on 

 exposed rock as in Sphagnum. I find it in rather dry and open con- 

 iferous woods, especially where the ground is covered with Hypnum 

 Oreganum. It seems to have a decided preference for this moss and 

 an almost equal antipathy to Hypnum splendens. 



It would perhaps be better for Calypso did it grow here in Sphagnum, 

 for its home in dry Hypnums renders it peculiarly subject to destruc- 

 tion by forest fires. I know of many places where a few years ago it 

 was abundant, that will never again be brightened by its daintv slip- 

 pers, all owing to fires. So I shall not be surprised' if in a very few 

 years the plant will be found more abundant in Vermont than it will 

 be here. 



I find that a large proportion of the plants here are fertile. The 



only insects I have seen on the flowers were ants, which were feeding 



on the nectar. I am inclined to believe that they are not the usual, if 



indeed at all, the fertilizers of Calvpso.— Chas. V. Piper, Seattle, 



Wash. 



Botanical Clubs in California. 



A paragraph in the July Gazette mentions the organization of a 

 botanical club in San Francisco. The beginning of this year witnessed 

 the formation of two, one in Berkeley and one in San Francisco. The 

 former dates from February 25, and is named the Chamisso Botanical 

 Club, in memory of the distinguished botanist who visited the Cali- 

 fornia shores in the early part of the century. It grew out of a purelv 

 spontaneous desire on the part of a number of post- and under- 

 graduate students to engage in some work that would contribute to the 

 knowledge of the California flora, and to this end thev perfected an 

 organization in which the professor of botany was in no way concerned 

 and of which he was entirely ignorant until after the young society 

 was fairly on its feet, and had mapped out for itself a special line of 

 work 1 he members have been engaged in the accumulation of ma- 

 terial for an annotated list of the plants growing within twenty miles 

 of San Francisco, and have discovered many species new to the region 

 and expect to " undiscover " a few that have been credited to this 

 locality and do not grow here. 



