126 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [AUGUST 
the year, but, as will develop later, the spores in the main are 
sterile. Material was fixed first about June 15, 1900, and at 
intervals of two weeks thereafter until February 1901. Sods 
were lifted from the rocks, and planted in shallow boxes which 
were kept in a warm place exposed to the direct sunlight. The 
spores were shed freely all summer. I collected other plants 
from a similar xerophytic situation at Starved rock, Illinois, in 
August, and for comparison material was sent me in Northamp- 
ton, Mass., from Austin, Texas, in November. These three regions 
are 800, 900, and 1600 miles apart. The plants collected in 
Massachusetts and Illinois, from June until February, almost 
without exception produced megasporangia only. The Texas 
material collected in November, on the other hand, was almost 
purely microsporangiate.? Expecting to find prothallia and 
young sporophytes developing in the spores that had been shed, 
these were picked out from the loam from which the plants were 
growing and killed at frequent intervals during the summer, with 
the purpose of getting all important stages. In all cases these 
proved to be barren. Late in August—as was the case with 
S. apus—the young sporophytes were discovered protruding 
from a withered strobilus that was nearly covered by the dirt. 
Further search produced many well-developed embryos, but it 
was apparently too late in the season to secure early stages 
(fig. 126). 
During the first week in January, a sudden thaw was suc- 
ceeded by several days of rain. Plants were collected from the 
mountain and gradually brought into a greenhouse temperature. 
The old strobili became greener at their tips, and new vegetative 
shoots started from the lower part of the stems. It is doubtful 
whether the increase in the number of individual plants in a 
given locality is due to any considerable extent to sexual repro- 
duction. A hollow in the rock, or a crevice, becomes filled with 
a closely compacted colony that is the result in great measure 
of vegetative reproduction, where prostrate branches, under 
Some of the Texas material was submitted to Professor L. M. Underwood, of 
Columbia University, for identification. He informs me that it is not S. rupestris, 
but a closely allied unnamed spec 
