ON THE WASHBURN BIOLOGICAL SURVEY OF KANSAS. 579 



No Fresh-water Sponge or Hydroid has yet been found in our Kansas waters. 



With our Rotifers and Rizopods nothing has yet been done. Some work 

 will be attempted on them another season. 



A brilliant red Infusoria, an Englena whose specific name now escapes me, I 

 found in August, on a wet mud flat by a shallow pool in Waubaunsee County, in 

 such multitudes as to make a considerable area to appear as though coated with 

 blood. Until within a few years this genus was regarded as a plant. It is not,, 

 however, the expectation to undertake much with the Infusoria, as these are fo? 

 largely cosmopolitan in their distribution. 



In Botany the survey has concerned itself with the Cryptogams only. A 

 number of botanists are diligently at work with the flowering-plants, and it is 

 understood that no less than four of these propose to give us independent accounts 

 of the phsenogamic flora of Kansas. Further work on the Phsenogams is there- 

 fore uncalled for. 



In the Ferns, collections have been made and two papers published which 

 have added a number of names to the record of Kansas species, Amongst these 

 I may mention the luxuriant Marsh-Fern {A. Thelypieris), contributed from Pot- 

 tawatomie County by Mr. A. McMillan, and the Hardy Lip- Fern {Ch. lanuginosa) 

 and the Wright Cliff Brake {P. Wrightiana), contributed from Ottawa County by 

 Mr. C. C. Olney. The species and varieties of ferns known to occur in Kansas 

 now number twenty-four. 



In Mosses, Fresh-water Algae, and Lichens, lists have been begun, though 

 the number of species recorded is small, compared with what are yet to be re- 

 corded. Among the Algse, after the large green scums of matted threads {Spiro- 

 gyra, etc.) common in pools and watering-troughs, the most conspicuous is per- 

 haps what may be called the " Swimming-bell Alga" {Gloeotrichia nutans,) which 

 was found in Lake Inman in August, and which seems not to have been pre- 

 viously detected in western North America. The gelatinous frond of this plant 

 has at first the form of an inverted saucer or shallow cup, with margin rolled ins 

 beneath. After this has attained a length of two or three inches it sends out 

 long finger-like lobes and becomes very irregular in form, the entire plant some- 

 times attaining a length of two or three feet. The resemblance in general habit 

 of the young "blubber-cups" to certain of the curious jelly-fish known to the 

 mariner as " sea-blubbers " at once suggests itself, though we must not look for 

 tentacles nor scrutinize in any way too closely ; and, as they float in the open 

 spaces left by the confused colony of brown, long-fingered, older fronds, it is easy 

 to fancy them such, floating among the sea-weeds of some quiet bay. Thus da 

 the insignificant lakelets of the plains in the heart of a great continent simulate 

 scenes of the ocean. 



In Fungi, the survey has collected over two hundred species, mainly non- 

 parasitic, of which nearly all have been reported in the Washburn Bulletins. Ins 

 this department of the work. Prof. W. A. Kellerman of the State Agricultural 

 College cooperates and has reported about one hundred eighty species of para- 

 sitic fungi and thirty- two miscellaneous. Making allowance for the few species 



