H 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



fronds and long shiny black stalks, green spleen- 

 wort (A. viride), long and exceedingly narrow, and 

 the tiny wall-rue or rue-leaved spleenwort (A . ritta- 

 muraria, growing over and under the coping. 



Then, of course, the hills and wastes are covered 

 in parts by the bracken (Pteris aquilina), the fern 

 that is despised as being scarcely a fern, because, 

 forsooth, its roots cannot be easily taken up as 

 others can. The poor people who get out from 

 London to one of the suburban commons, on their 

 infrequent holidays, have a mind to try the cultiva- 

 tion of this abundant fern, and pull up the fronds, 

 as they fondly imagine, by the roots. In reality 

 they get only the stalk. The thick, juicy, creeping 

 stem runs several inches below the surface, and 

 the fronds are sent up solitarily at intervals along 

 the stem. The rootless fronds that are pulled up 

 by these people will not grow — even before they 

 reach their squalid homes, the bundle of fronds 

 is a mass of limp green rags — and so the bracken 

 gets a bad name as a worthless sort of weed that 

 will not bear transplanting from the dry and sunny 

 common. As a question of fact, it will lend itself 

 to cultivation as well as any, and if liberally 

 treated in the way of water and protection from 

 wind, becomes a really beautiful object with 

 little resemblance to the common forms. 



If in early autumn you will walk in dark attire, 

 through a long stretch of bracken, you will come 

 out with the front of your dress changed to a 

 rusty-red colour. And so you will see and have 

 what the old poets and romancers said you coura 

 not have or see, except upon the eve of St. John, 

 and even then, only after taking many precautions. 

 That red dust upon your clothes consists of many 

 millions of fern-seeds (more correctly spores) ; and 

 as of old they were held to be invisible, so they 

 were also thought to bestow invisibility upon who- 

 ever was sufficiently fortunate to obtain them. 



Should you desire a subject for observation and 

 study, consider the various ways in which these 

 spores are borne upon the frond, some in thick, 

 transverse lines (hart's-tongue), others in round, 

 uncovered heaps (polypody), covered heaps (lady- 

 fern, etc.), in slits along the veins (spleen worts), 

 under the turned-down margin (bracken), under 

 the turned-down tips of the lobes (maidenhair), 

 round a stalk in a little urn (bristle-fern and filmy- 

 fern), or clustered round the ribs as in Osmunda 

 and moonwort. Furthermore, follow the history 

 of the spore, see it carried on the wind until it 

 sticks upon some damp surface, where it will grow 

 into a tiny plant much like a liverwort, which 

 develops sexual flowers upon its under side, 

 whose activity results in the growth of another 

 plant, a little fern. All this is very strange, and 

 sufficiently accounts for the mystery which our 

 fathers believed to enfold the fern. 

 Epsom ; Feb.. 1S94. 



[This department will be devoted to photography 

 as applied to the representation of scientific objects. 

 Examples, accompanied with notes not exceeding 100 

 words, invited. — Ed,] 



CVLINDRELLA TRINITARIA. 



Cylindrella trinitaria, Pfeiffer, is a native of 

 Trinidad, and also inhabits Venezuela. The speci- 

 mens photographed were collected in Trinidad in 

 July, 1893, and reached England alive. Perfect 

 specimens are comparatively rare. Usually they 

 are found with the spire decollated to the extent of 

 five or six whorls. Mature specimens vary in size 

 from eleven to fourteen mm. in length. Informa- 

 tion as to habitat is desired. My correspondent 

 says he found those he collected " on damp stones 

 in a ravine." 



Radula of Amplllaria urcens. 

 Radula of Ampullaria urcens, Mull. — A. 

 urcens is one of the largest of fresh water mollusca. 

 The specimen from which this radula was photo- 

 graphed was received from Trinidad in a living 

 state. The shell is almost globular, measuring 

 105 mm. in height, by 105 mm. in circumference. 



William Moss. 

 13, Milton Place, Ashton-under-Lyne ; Feb., 1894. 

 [The above two figures are from excellent photo- 

 graphs by Mr. Moss. — Ed.] 



