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52 AMERICAN FERN JOURNAL 
The fourth locality given in the manuals is in Missouri. 
Of this, Rev. C. H. Demetrio, the original and only 
collector of the plant there, has obligingly furnished the 
following account: 
“Tike many other things, Salvinia natans was found 
accidentally. After a botanical excursion in the bluffs 
of the Bois-brulé Bottoms of Perry Co., Mo., we—my 
friends and I—were on the homeward way, passing 
Dixon’s Lake. I left the wagon to gather some Azolla 
caroliniana. I took a stick and fished out a bulk of 
nearly everything. I put the bulk in my botanical tin 
case because I had no time to clean up everything. 
The next day I found, besides the Azolla, tangled in 
decaying leaves of Potamogeton and other stuff, some 
plants with sporocarps in the form of little balls. I sent 
a sample to the world-known Nestor of Botany, Prof. 
Dr. Asa Gray. He pronounced it Salvinia natans : 
A month after the discovery of Salvinia I got a call 
from Emma, Mo., where I arrived December 9, 1886. 
Since that time I have never seen Dixon’s Lake again. 
I am therefore not able to state whether the Salvinia 
is growing there, indigenous or spontaneous. The 
land is low, somewhat swampy and subjected to slp i 
flow by the water of the Mississippi River 
Mr. Demetrio’s specimen, sent to Dr. Grays is ‘pr e- 
served at Cambridge and is true Salvinia natans. 
Mr. B: F. Bush and Mr. E. J. Palmer, who have col- 
lected very extensively in Missouri in recent years, 
state that they have never met with the plant. 
The claim of Salvinia natans to a place in our flora 
rests, then, on one ancient and very doubtful report, 
wo mis-identifications, and a single authentic collec- 
tion, never repeated, at a station which has not been 
re-discovered in 35 years. It surely should not, at 
present be included in our manuals. There seems, 
however, to be no reason why true S. natans might not 
become naturalized with us (as its relative, Azolla 
