Botanical Notes. 53 



speak, in each other's way, exhibits a wonderful degree of 

 projectile energy. From a colony of plants placed upon a 

 laboratory table the snow-white spores were dispersed in 

 quantity in all directions within a circle having a radius of two 

 or three feet. Such projection is hardly to be explained by 

 the operation of the forces and apparatus which cause in all 

 Hymenomycetes the simple abjection of the spores. The 

 propulsion is best seen when the plants are placed in a dry 

 atmosphere, as in a steam-heated room. A dry air out of 

 doors will, however, effect the same result. I am inclined to 

 think that the hy menial layer in many Agarics is decidedly a 

 hygroscopic structure. When the air is dry dispersal takes 

 place freely, when wet, the amount of abjection is small. 



Certain species of myxomycetous fungi seem to exhibit a 

 similar projectile energy. Having placed a colony of the 

 sporangia of Stemonitis fnsca in a box furnished with a lid 

 and standing quietly in a drawer, I was a few days later sur- 

 prised to find the whole inner surface of the box-Hd as well as 

 the sides of the box all around stained perfectly brown with 

 spores. Specimens of Hemiarcyria riibiformis exhibit the 

 same pecuHarity. In this case I have supposed that the ten- 

 sion of the imprisoned capillitium might be sufficient on the 

 breaking of the upper part of the sporangium to account for 

 the scattered spores. No such explanation is applicable to 

 the Stemonitis. In both instances the change from- the out- 

 door atmosphere to the warm dry laboratory- had something 

 to do in the results. Still I believe the results are often at- 

 tained in conditions purely natural. 



Some Interesting Plants. 



We have in the herbarium of the State University several 

 specimens interesting to students of distribution. Two species 

 of Lvcopodium from the immediate vicinity of the institution 

 were noticed in the American JVaturalist sometime since. 



Specimens of Sphagnum sp? found in a woodland pool 



in this countv, are beheved to be the first peat-mosses reported 



