156 



missed his laurels. Among the nature students of four hundred 

 years ago I know not who else is so far from accepting things on 

 other people's guess or hearsay as Valerius Cordus; in whom I 

 have not yet read a line that savors of the fabulous or super- 

 stitious; and that, for the period, is much to say of any author." 



In face of the erroneous and more or less superstitious notions 

 as to the reproduction of ferns that were then current even among 

 the best-educated, Cordus boldly ventures the following in re- 

 gard to the trichomanes fern: 



"It grows copiously on moist shaded rocks, although it produces 

 no stem, or flower or seed. But it reproduces itself by means 

 of the dust that is developed on the back of the leaves, as do 

 all kinds of ferns; and let this statement of the fact once for all 

 sufi&ce." 



And the following paragraph from Dr. Greene's work, relating 

 to one of the observations made by this clear-seeing and clear- 

 thinking German youth, who died as long ago as 1544, will be of 

 historical interest to many economic botanists of the present day : 



"The plant physiologist of to-day, interested in the functions 

 of the root tubercles of leguminous plants may find in Valerius 

 Cordus the earliest mention of these organs. I do not find him 

 taking note of them except as occurring in the cultivated lupine 

 of Europe. Accustomed to give a full account of every kind of 

 root, even to its medicinal usefulness or uselessness, he says of 

 that of the lupine that it is 'slender, woody, white and without 

 useful properties, parted into a few slender fibers upon which 

 there sometimes grow small tubercles.' " 



Part I. of Dr. Greene's "Landmarks" covers a most interesting 

 and hitherto inadequately treated period in the history of botany. 

 The work will be needed by all libraries that contain Julius von 

 Sachs' well-known history and by all botanists who .feel an in- 

 terest in the recorded beginnings of their science. 



Marshall A. Howe 



FIELD MEETINGS FOR 1910 



In the American Naturalist for January, 1899, Dr. Arthur 

 Hollick has pointed out the great influence of the geological for- 

 mation on the forest conditions of New Jersey. All the territory 



