73 



"By the construction of the Gatun Dam a vast freshwater 

 lake will be created, which will drive away or drown the majority 

 of the animals and plants now inhabiting the locality, and quite 

 possibly exterminate some species before they become known to 

 science." 



Miss Graham, studying Conocephalum conicum (Fegatella 

 conica), finds that at Ithaca, N. Y., the gametophores begin to 

 appear in June, that fertilization takes place about the first of 

 July, that the spores are fully formed before the beginning of 

 winter, and that in the following May the gametophore stalk 

 rapidly elongates. This elongation is quickly followed by the 

 elongation of the stalk of the sporogonium. The venter of the 

 archegonium is two-layered at the time of fertilization, and soon 

 becomes a massive calyptra. The first division of the fusion 

 nucleus gives rise to free nuclei, which may lie parallel with or 

 transversely to the major axis of the archegonium A cell wall 

 is not laid down until some little time has elapsed after division 

 of the fusion nucleus; when the wall appears, it is transverse. 

 By successive transverse divisions a filament of four or five cells 

 is formed. This observation differs from that of Cavers, who 

 described an octant stage. The first longitudinal walls appear in 

 the outer or capsule end of the filament. At the time of separa- 

 tion of the mother cells, the growth of the capsule is checked, 

 while the calyptra continues growth, leaving quite a space between 

 capsule and calyptra. The capsule and seta soon resume growth, 

 fill the cavity, and distend the calyptra. No pseudoperianth, 

 such as is found in Marchantia, is present. A sheath, which is a 

 specialized portion of the gametophore, invests the calyptra. 

 (W. J. G. Land, Botanical Gazette, February.) 



Duncan S. Johnson, in the December Journal of the New York 

 Botanical Garden calls attention to a heavy flood (November and 

 December, 1909) in the Blue Mountain region of Jamaica, in. 

 which "scores of acres of coffee fields were stripped to the bare 

 rock" and "even the primeval forest of the valley bottoms was 

 swept out and carried down to the sea." The "gray desert" 



