REPORT UPON SOME FRESH- WATER SPONGES OOLLEOTBD IN 

 FLORIDA BY JOS. WILLCOX, ESQ. 



BY EDWARD POTTS. 



These sponges, although not strikingly novel in character, are of great 

 interest on account of the unusual situations and circumstances in which 

 they were found 



The larger number, as well as the largest specimens, had grown upon 

 the stems of coarse grasses, forming spindle-shaped masses 1-4 inches in 

 length by an extreme of, say, 2 inches in thickness. Mr. Willcox writes : 

 " The sponges on the stems of grass and roots of mangrove trees were 

 found on the meadows or prairie on the margin of the Everglades of 

 Florida, near the head of Allen's Creek, which empties into Chuckalusky 

 Bay, about fifteen miles north of Lostman's Key and ten or twelve miles 

 east of the Gulf of Mexico. The meadow or prairie is not more than 12 

 inches higher than the water in the creek, which at the time of my visit 

 was salt}'. The nearest residents to that vicinity .state that during the rainy 

 season of the summer and autumn the land there is flooded with fresh 

 water, which subsides in December or January. After the subsidence of 

 the fresh water the land is occasionally flooded with salt water during the 

 prevalence of southwest gales. The fresh-water sponges are found there in 

 great abundance, usually lying upon the ground ; their weight, when wet, 

 in most cases having caused the prostration of the stems of grass after the 

 subsidence of the waters." 



Their temporary submergence in salt water is shown by the fact that all 

 the specimens were either partially or entirely covered by a salty efflores- 

 cence. Notwithstanding this and their subsequent desiccation of weeks or 

 possibly of months, the gemmules of these .sponges still retained their 

 vitalit>', as they germinated freely after being placed in water in a watch- 

 glass. In another experiment, a complete sponge that had been weighted 

 and sunk to the bottom of a jar containing water, remained for many weeks 

 apparently unchanged, then gradually disintegrated, and the liberated 

 gemmules on rising to the surface of the water germinated there. 



I find that these sponges belong to the genus Meyenia, and may be 

 classed with the well-known species M. fluviatilis ; their most obvious 



