66 
tinuous mantle of a very peculiar greyish sea-green. It was 
one of the pera landscapes I have seen in the upper Congo. 
Each year, at the rainy season in the region of dry periods, 
at the time of i pee precipitation in the great forest, the 
Platyceriums produce at first some sterile leaves, then others 
that carry the spores. The first are placed against each other; 
the most ancient, long since dead, persist in the form of an over- 
turned mass, which, together with the roots, constitute a great 
sponge destined to retain the water streaming along the branches 
and the trunk. It is a precious reserve which prevents the plant 
from drying up completely in the intervals of dryness, for there 
are short aed deprived of rain, the same as in the equatorial 
forest. Thus may be explained, in the case of many epiphytic 
lant the ae a which characterize the species of regions 
having an abbreviated dry sea: The fertile leaves are not 
divided and carry on ae nan ae a large paver of light 
chestnut-red occupied by the spore-bearing tissue 
Many, possibly all, of the species of stag- nigra are to be found 
in cultivation in greenhouses. Six are represented at the New 
Stemaria and A. Willinkit. ee ae range no. 2 may be 
reached by following the road past the east end of the Museum 
Building, turning to the right and crossing the left of the 
two bridges over the river. A short footpath a little way beyond, 
turning to the left past the hollow where the Japanese double- 
flowering cherries blossom in the spring, leads directly to the 
conservatories. The stag-horns are mostly in the central house, 
hanging in their ie among the tips of the tree-ferns. 
few young plants, offshoots from the large ones, have been de- 
tached and tacked against the greenhouse wall. 
arge plants are grown imbedded in peat, with which the 
time on the outside of the peat. These are merely taken off, 
together with a handful of the peat, fastened up somewhere, and 
the peat kept damp. There are a number of plants in the 
greenhouse, raised in this way, that are now as large as the 
