— II — 



keep it in a warm partially shaded window. You can hardly fail 

 to derive interest and pleasure from watching the development 

 and growth of the prothalli and the young ferns, which you can 

 do with the aid of a good hand lens, and well-grown prothalli 

 can be watched with the unaided eye. The prothalli are variable, 

 especially those that bear proliferous buds, and when they are not 

 fertilized they live a long time. Lowe divided them into quarters 

 and kept them alive for seven years, afterward by putting two 

 parts together, bringing about fertilization and raising a fern 

 plant. 



Now if any of you have the facilities for such work it might 

 repay you to try some of Lowe's experiments and in such an 

 event, it may be well remembered that in a work on " Cultivated 

 Plants" by F. W. Bur bridge, it is stated that the antherozoides 

 from one prothallium may be transferred on the tip of a sable 

 pencil to the archegonia cf another prothallium by means of a 

 drop of water. 



But the simpler experiments are easily within your reach, 

 and if Asftidium crzstatumxmargmale is a true hybrid it might 

 possibly be reproduced artificially by sowing a mixture of the 

 spores from its supposed parents. If some one of you could ac- 

 complish this, and also reproduce Asplenium ebenoides in the 

 same way, it would be a great achievement. 



Medford, Mass., August, 1898. 



AN INTERESTING VARIETY OF OSMUNDA 

 CLAYTONIANA, 



By A: J. Grout. 



IN the summer of 1897, Mrs. Grout, while riding along a country 

 road in Newfane, Vt, noticed a peculiar Osmunda, which 

 she collected and attempted to identify. When my attention 

 was called to it, I saw that it was like nothing of which I had 

 ever seen or heard. A frond was sent to Prof. Underwood, who 

 also declared that he had seen nothing like it. No fruit was col- 

 lected at this time, but in the summer of 1898 the same form was 

 again collected in the same spot and in fruit. 



The two or three lower pairs of pinnae are much like those of 

 O. Claytoniana, except that they are rather more deeply cleft 

 and are oblong and obtuse instead of oblong-lanceolate. The 



