684 BOTANY. 
hypericefolia of Schweinitz. He thought that the fact that this 
little fungus should be able to make a usually creeping plant, 
rooting from every joint, entirely lose this character and become 
erect, was worthy of some notice by students in this branch of 
botany. — From remarks made before the Philad. Acad. Sciences. 
CLASSIFICATION OF THE GRAY Prve.—In the last edition of 
Gray’s “ Manual,” the gray pine (Pinus Banksiana Lambert) is 
classed, according to Dr. Engelmann’s arrangement of the species, 
with P. inops Ait. and P. mitis Michx., etc., in the group with 
the fertile catkins and cones lateral. Now, at Tawas Point, 
Michigan (Lake Huron), I find (June, 1872) this tree in an abun- 
dance of instances, with young, half-grown fruit, as well as others 
with female flowers, bearing them, one or a pair at apex, thus 
again a few inches lower down, and again farther down along that 
same branch. . 
It would be important to know how frequently the female flow- 
ers and the fruit are apical (i. e. above the leaves)’ and how often 
lateral. The facts here given would seem to require a correction 
in the classification of this tree, placing it, perhaps in an inter- 
mediate group, between the two groups already erected. Speci- 
mens sent by me to Dr. Engelmann have elicited his surprise a8; 
though he had had plenty of material of P. Banksiana from 
Lake Michigan, he had none showing this disposition of the fruit 
The trees at Tawas Point are, for the gray pine, remarkably 
large; in many cases reaching the height of fifty feet, the trunk 
being frequently over a foot in diameter and occasionally eighteen 
inches through. The specimens collected, however, were from the 
more stunted usual form, ranging from five to twenty feet high, 
and which grow on the extremity of the point. I do not thi 
the cones were either as frequently or as much curved as I have 
observed them to be on this tree further north, for instal’? at 
Marquette on Lake Superior — Henry Gutman, Detroit, Michigan. 
Tur Veceraste Nature or Draroms.— The Rev. M. J. pi 
ley notices in the “ Academy” a memoir by Dr. Pfitzer on ` 
toms, which fully confirms the important observations which wes 
made by Mr. Thwaites, and which “ at once settled the ae 
as to the vegetable nature of their singular organisms. the 
point of special interest in Pfitzer’s paper is the elucidation p 
mode in which the two portions of the outer silicious envelope 
