—56—. 



THE ASH OF PHEGOPTERIS HEX AGONOPTERIS. 



'HE following is taken from an old number of the Bulletin of 



the Torrey Botanical Club, and may interest some of those 



who have fronds of this fern to burn. We shall be glad if 

 those who try the experiment will report results. 



Some years since I found in Cayuga county a number of ex- 

 ceedingly large specimens of Phegopteris hexagonoptera. On 

 burning some broken pieces after I had dried them. I noticed 

 that instead of leaving an ordinary ash, each piece left a white 

 globule of nearly pure carbonate of potash. I then took a whole 

 frond and set one end on fire, holding the other, when a little 

 white globule followed up the burning end, hissing and boiling 

 and increasing as it went on, and attaining the size of a very 

 large pin-head by the time the frond had burned up to my fin- 

 gers: but no other ash appeared. I repeated the experiment 

 several times with the same result, and have since tried speci- 

 mens from other localities and have often found that the fern 

 would burn entirely up, with nothing solid left but a white glob- 

 ule of carbonate of potash. How pure the salt was I cannot say, 

 as I only satisfied myself of its main character. I ought to men- 

 tion that the soil in which the specimens first mentioned grew 

 was mainly formed of decayed wood. 



APOSPORY AND FERN VARIATION IN GREAT BRITAIN. 

 r T^HE Spring number of the Fern Bulletin which has reached 



me interests me greatly as an evidence of more extended 



love of ferns in the United States than appears to obtain 

 in this country, since we have no periodical devoted to this special 

 cult. My object in writing is to inform your readers, should you 

 think fit to insert my letter in your next issue, that I take a par- 

 ticular interest in thos6 abnormal forms of reproduction which 

 ferns in recent years have been demonstrated to produce, and in 

 this particular connection I may point to apospory or the produc- 

 tion of prothalli without the intervention of the spore, a phenom- 

 enon of which I was fortunate 'enough to discover the first in- 

 stance, as you may confirm by reference to the Linnsean Society's 

 papers. Examples of this I subsequently found in Lastrea (Ne- 

 phrodium ) pseudo-mas, Polystichium angulare, Scolopendrium 

 vulgare, and a second form of Athyrium filix-fcemina, upon 

 which species the first case was discovered and its true nature 



