34 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [ JANUARY 
Full grown plants of this species are immediately recognized 
among others with which they may chance to be associated, 
when immersed by their long floating leaves, and when emersed 
by the very large diameter of their assembled macrosporangia, 
which in one instance in a fresh plant was 234, a diameter of 
2" being common; but it may be remarked in passing that 
desiccation produces a shrinkage of from 25 to 40 per cent. 
Thus /. Zatont is unsurpassed in dimensions by any known 
North American species, and only equaled, if at all, by Engel- 
mann’s /. Engelmanni valida, which as yet has not been noticed 
in the New England states. J. Engelmanni, with which our 
present species has perhaps been confounded, is abundant in 
eastern Massachusetts, growing in nearly every brook and slow 
running stream, and is quite common even in ditches, but I have 
not seen plan‘s with leaves more than 16™ long, nor with bulbs 
more than an inch in diameter, specimens of this size being quite 
unusual, The number of leaves in full grown plants of Z. Eatont 
varies from 50 to nearly 200, the greatest number yet noticed 
having been 187. 
The most striking characteristics of this species are: the 
paucity of microspores; the irregular occurrence of peripheral 
bast bundles in the leaves; the peculiar sculpture of the macro- 
spores; the straightness of the commissural ridges; and the 
low angle they form with the equatorial plane. Previous to 
drying the well grown plants of this species, large and filled 
with moisture as they are, it is well to cut each plant into two 
parts, making a section at right angles to the natural division of 
the trunk. I have divided a great many in this way, but in the 
largest no sporangia containing microspores have as yet been 
detected. Several plants have been noticed which contained 
from ten to thirty microsporangia, and few or no macrosporangia, 
and about a dozen which held microsporangia irregularly scat- 
tered among the others. On the other hand several hundred 
plants which have been examined apparently contained only 
macrospores. 
‘It has been remarked Alexander Braun lee | other I Euro- 
