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SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XXI. No. 535 



SCIENCE: 



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THE PRODUCT OF A CHANGED ENVIRONMENT. 



BT GEORGE H. HUDSON, STATE NORMAL AND TRAINING SCHOOL, 

 PLATTSBURGH, N. T. 



Toward the latter part of September or early in October 1891, 

 a number of pitcher plants (Sarracenia purpurea, L ) were sent 

 to me from Wolf Pond, Franklin Co., N. Y., together with other 

 bog plants, for our school Wardian case. This case is 130 cm. 

 long, 51 cm. wide, 45 cm. deep, and stands before an east win- 

 dow where it does not get very much light, save on sunny morn- 

 ings. We keep in this case many kinds of mosses, ferns, some 

 fungi, and several small animals such as salamanders, toads, 

 wood-frogs, young alligators, and different insect larvas. This 

 case also furnishes abundant material for microscopic study, 

 such as rhizopods, infusorians, rotifers, etc. The pitcher plants 

 were carefully set out in the east side of the case, and for several 

 months the pitchers were kept filled with water, and were occa- 

 sionally fed with flies and bits of meat. Later in the season the 

 plants were neglected ; the pitchers were not filled with water, 

 nor was any kind of animal food given them. In the late spring 

 there were two plants living. These plants had begun to in- 

 crease the width of the leaf-like margin of their pitchers while 

 the hoods and tubes themselves were suffering a marked change. 

 These changes were intensified during the summer, and the result 

 is shown by the reproduction of a photograph taken Nov. 5, 

 1892. This photograph shows an old and somewhat decayed 

 phyllodium from one of the two plants, and, in contrast with it, 

 one of the new phyllodia from each. These new phyllodia are 

 bright green, without a trace of the usual coloring, serving to 

 attract insects, save on the very edge of the aborted and flattened 

 hood, where a faint border about 3 mm. deep may be noticed. 

 Some of these hoods have not opened ; the hairs which line others 

 are in an immature and useless condition. The leaf-like margins 

 of these curiously modified petioles, instead of being from one- 

 fourth to one-third the width of the tube as in normal specimens, 

 have become from three to four times the width of the now weak 

 and flattened tube. The scale photographed with these phyllodia 

 will show the extent of this modification. The scale shows 

 inches on the left and centimetres on the right. Of the next older 

 phyllodia the larger hoods have decayed, while the tube audits 

 wing-like expansion are still in a healthy condition. This piicher 

 plant grows wild in Plattsburgh, and I have seen it in many 

 places in the Adirondack region, but I have never noticed such 

 wide margins in a state of nature. Was the change in our 

 Wardian case' made because of the absence of animal food, which 

 made it necessary for the plant to look in other directions for its 

 support ? Was it made because of the absence of the influence of 

 water in its tubes while it was forming these new phyllodia? 

 Was the plant obliged to sacrifice its pitchers in order to extend 

 its chlorophyl-bearing surface on account of the loss of light? 



The changes made, it will be noticed, were just those changes 

 which would best bring it into harmony with its changed envi- 

 ronment. Was this change made in response to the demands of 

 the new environment, or were the changes but the reversion to an 

 ancient type consequent simply on the diminished vitality of the 

 plant? This curious change suggests many experiments which 

 might easily be made to determine the extent to which certain 

 lower organisms could vary in response to external stimuli, and 

 thus be able to adapt themselves to unusual conditions in a 

 changed or changing environment. 



Early in the winter one of the little toads used to get into a 

 large prostrate phyllodium, apparently to take a hath We have 

 noticed him a number of times sitting just «ithin the hood with 



his body partly in the water. The red, spotted salamanders crawl 

 over th ; alligator and share the sunny portions of the case with 

 him. Believing these bright-colored beings not fit for food, he 

 has offered the little things no violence. One of the small garden 

 toads did not fare so well but became a victim of a pair of jaws 

 that broke his bones in their embrace. 



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 of the journal. 



Variation in Native Ferns. 



The wide variation in the forms of British ferns is well known 

 to all who read the works of English florists, but there is less of 

 this in America. Scolopendrium vulgare will have different 

 auricles at the base, and sometimes is forked at the apex, but it 

 varies little beyond this. I have found Woodsia ilvensls also 

 with a forked apex, but this rare. 



Aspidium acrostichoides is much more variable in many ways. 

 Almost any woodland will present differing forms, as regards 



