120 AMERICAN FERN JOURNAL 
It appears to be a very old plant for the rhizome is 
large and covered with rough scales, and has grown out 
in two directions, the ends being about eight inches a- 
part. One end was dead, but the other though still 
alive was being used badly by chickens that had been 
scratching at it. It was growing in a rather dry place 
near the end of a brick wall under Crepe Myrtle (Lager- 
stroemia indica, L.) bushes. There might have been 
more plants but for the chickens. 
I found a dozen or fifteen plants of Pteris longifolia 
L. growing on the brick wall of an old building on Con- 
gress street, near Davis Avenue in the city of Mobile. 
There are growing with it Pteris serrulata, L. and 
Dryopteris patens, (Sw.) Kuntze and several kinds of 
weeds. The wall is covered with moss and is shaded 
by a tree. I have observed it growing there for two 
years. It may ke found in other parts of the city but 
this the only place I have seen it growing. This fern 
is not reported in Mohr’s Plant Life of Alabama, and 
as far as I know this is the first time it has been re- 
ported from the state. —E. W. Graves, Spring Hill, 
Ala. ; 
ON THE VIABILITY OF CERTAIN Fern Spores.—The 
spores of some of our common wild ferns germinate only 
a short time after they have reached maturity as, for 
example, those of the Osmunda species which remain 
viable for only a few days. In other species as Pteras 
aquilina L., the spores are known to retain their power 
to germinate for two years. 
Beginning with the summer of 1910, the writer col- 
lected in the vicinity of Madison fronds of a number of 
species of ferns. The spores of all the species which 
germinated a short time after they were collected were 
kept in packets in the botanical laboratory. ‘The spores 
of the different species were sown again October 4, 
