MIDLAND NATURALIST 9I 
into their reproduction stages. A quicker way than this latter 
more or less uncertain one has been devolved and considerable 
success attained. It has been found that if mud, grass, sticks of 
wood and the like are taken from the place in the field where certain 
plants have been observed or are known to have been present, and 
this mud is put into the laboratory jars, there will often in the course 
of a few weeks result a luxuriant growth of the plant even though 
no traces of the plant can be found at the time of the collecting. 
This method is especially applicable in winter, and then most 
striking in its results. The method applied at that season is not 
unlike that used in ‘‘forcing’’ the higher plants for flowering at 
Easter. Anexample which was several times repeated will illustrate 
this. In the winter of 1907 some mud, wood, and weeds that were 
found in an old barrel in the ground from which a spring gushed 
part of the year, were brought into the laboratory and put into a 
gallon beaker. Nanandrous (Edogonium had been collected there 
in the preceding spring and the material was excellent. The time 
of collection was about the middle of December in the course of a 
few warm days when the snow disappeared and the ice had thawed 
out by the warmth of thesunshine. A day or two after the material 
was introduced into the laboratory a blizzard came up rather 
suddenly. Snow fell that did not leave the ground till spring. 
In the laboratory the jar became covered within a week with a 
green coating, and it was found to consist of numerous zoospores 
which soon attached themselves to the walls of the vessel, changing 
their cilia into ‘‘holdfasts.’’ They grew rapidly and in great 
abundance so that within a month and a half, I had a large amount 
of the best nanandrous GEdegomium I have ever collected. The 
culture was practically pure, and had the advantage that it could 
easily be removed from the glass walls of the beaker without injur- 
ing the plants in the least. From time to time the plants were 
removed, and were found in all stages of sexual reproduction. As 
fast as the older plants were removed every few days new growth 
replaced them, this continuing until May of 1908. It seems then 
that bringing the mud containing the oospores into warm laboratory 
from the winter conditions outside had the same effect as the return 
of spring upon the plants. This ‘‘forcing’’ process was tried 
several times since, and though not with such striking results, a 
good growth of reproductive nanandrous CEdogomium was obtain- 
ed. If the mud is introduced in two large a quantity propor- 
