
40 NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 














on the opposite side of the river, and the inference drawn that the mean 4 ] 
annual temperature of the rock would be so reduced by the slow melting ` 
of the ice, and the large amount of evaporation in summer, as to aiford q 
favorable conditions for the growth of northern plants.” In hope of find- = 
ing something of the kind, the spot was visited on the eighteenth of May, — 
1867, in company with Professors Green and Hitchcock, of Lafayette Col- 
lege, and our search was rewarded by the discovery of Sedum Rhodiola 
D. C.,-—an inhabitant of high latitudes in Europe and America, its near- 
est known station in our country being Quoddy Head, on the eastern 
AN northward at the close of the glacial epoch, it was left behind. | 
Far up on the ledges of the rock, chiefly under the drip of the water, it — 
grow aaa tufts, whose pale, glaucous hue attracts the eye of the © 
pitt, in situations so difficult of access, and in such abundance, that ` 
it bids fair to maintain its hold as successfully for ages to come, as i 
for ages past. 
It may not be amiss to state also that in New Jersey, ten miles to the 
north of aie cliffs, Polemonium ceruleum L. has been recertly detected 
in a large, shaded, sphagnous swamp, he it is evidently indigenous; 
and that, a few miles farther on, in the s: range, occur other northe 
DSa among which are Bidens Beckii mice Lobelia Kalmii L., Betula 
pum .- and Carex fava L.—T. C. PORTER. 
“8 
PoLyPorus FRONDOsUS.—A specimen of this enormous fungus W 
recently exhibited at one of the Horticultural Society Exhibitions at — 
Bos It was found growing on the decayed stump of an oak tree in 
so that the plant resembles an umbrella, the sticks of which are replaced 
by a serried mass of vertical tubes, on the ap aphass of which gro 
the reproductive dust called spores. The P. frondosus produces its pile 
in side growths, which look HE thick, fleshy leaves, and hence the spe 
cific name. 
Many of these eccentric species grow to an enormous size. The speci- 
men referred to was four feet in circumference. A specimen of P. gigan- ! 
teus, collected in Forest Hill Cemetery some years ago, was over five feet 
in circumference, and weighed ten pounds. — C. J. SPRAGUE. 
e 
