1911] | BRIEFER ARTICLES 479 
It was noticed that the plants with few exceptions were in groups of 
3-10, usually radiating from a large plant. When 
the root system of these groups was laid bare, a 
work of no little difficulty because of the depth 
of the roots and the great number of roots of 
other plants in the soil, it was found that nearly 
all of the plants of a group were connected, and 
that the smaller plants were produced by adven- 
titious budding of the roots of the larger plants. 
This method of vegetative reproduction is found 
in several species of Ophioglossum. Occasionally 
a leaf bears two fertile spikes. 
_ The presence of a protocorm, and a method 
of vegetative reproduction so similar to Phyl- 
loglossum, may lead the unwary, or the “arm 
chair” botanist, to speculate concerning a pos- 
sible relationship between Ophioglossales and 
Lycopodiales. It must be borne in mind that 
the protocorm probably has no phylogenetic 
significance whatever. 
The region is one of exceptional interest to a 
botanist. The great central plateau falls sharply 
away to the low plain bordering the Gulf of 
exico. Rain and mist are abundant even in 
the dry season, because the clouds drift against 
the high eastern escarpment of the plateau. 
The border of the plateau is deeply dissected by 
the numerous small streams which fall over its 
edge and form box cafions, sometimes 500 meters 
deep. Because clouds continually drift up these 
Cafions, their walls and floors are covered with 
dense masses of filmy ferns, liverworts, and mosses. 
On the high mesas between these cafions, but 
never in them, this Ophiogl i tab t ; 5 
In the same situation Lycopodium clavatum and : 
L planatum are alsoabundant. The species of 
Lycopodium and Ophioglossum are apparently 
confined to an altitude of about 2200 meters. At 
the same altitude, on the bank of a stream just before it plunges over 
the wall of a box cafion, a bog of volcanic ash and sphagnum was 
found.—W. J. G. Lanp, The University of Chicago. 
Fic. 1.—Ophioglossum: 
protocorm bearing sterile 
leaf. 
