19 



The instrument is extremely delicate and care must be taken 

 not to blow the breath upon it while making a test, and the 

 transpiration of the hand will give a decided reaction. Leaves 

 attached to the plant may be tested both indoors and outdoors. 

 It is believed that this instrument is free from most of the faults 

 ascribed by F. Darwin to the horn hygrometer devised by him, 

 and is quite as accurate and sensitive. 



THE LYGODIUM AT HOME 



By Frederick H. Blodgett 



In Middlesex County, New Jersey, the climbing fern [Lygodium 

 palmatum (Bernh.) Swz.] occurs in considerable abundance. The 

 several localities are quite similar in general conditions, and a 

 description of one will serve for an average of all. 



The most accessible spot where it is found abundantly is a few 

 miles south of New Brunswick, in the edge of the sandy area 

 known as "the burnt woods." This is a tract of low hills and 

 shallow hollows covered to a large extent with various scrub 

 oaks and laurel. Many of the hollows contain water, either as 

 nearly stagnant ponds, or as bogs of sphagnum and other aquatic 

 plants. It is in one of these sphagnum bogs that the Lygodium 

 grows. 



Swamp maples and other water-loving trees surround the bog> 

 giving place to the lower forms as the edge of the peat is 

 reached, so that the surface of the sphagnum is nearly free from 

 shade during the greater part of the day. Near the west end of 

 the bog there are three colonies of Lygodium, a small one at the 

 southwest, another at the northwest, and the third at the apex of 

 a triangle, nearly equilateral, formed by the three. The fern 

 grows among and entwines the low shrubbery and stout her- 

 baceous plants forming the border of the sphagnum area of the 

 swamp. 



The largest colony is that in the northwest corner of the 

 swamp. Here, on the 22nd of last December, the stems of golden - 



