MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



Professors L. R. Jones and F. A. Rich have found that the 

 common horsetail (Equisetum arvense) is poisonous to horses 

 when it is mixed with the hay though the horses feed upon the 

 green plant with impunity. Among Vermont names for this 

 plant we note coltstail, foxtail, pine-top, pine-grass, meadow pine, 

 jointed rush and snake-grass. 



Mr. C. E. Waters, long known for his work among the ferns, 

 has in preparation a book on the subject, which will be en- 

 titled "Ferns." It will contain a large number of photographs, 

 including illustrations of the genera of American ferns, and a 

 chapter on fern photography. There will be keys based upon the 

 arrangement of the tissues in the stipe and upon the fruit, be- 

 sides more or less matter of a popular nature. 



* * 



The variety of the common cinnamon fern, Ostium da cinna- 

 motnca glandulosa, described by C. E. Waters, in a recent issue 

 of The Fern BueeETin, occurs in the Pine Barrens of New Jer- 

 sey. I never happened to notice it until September of this year, 

 when an inquiry from Mr. Waters sent me in search of it. Good 

 specimens of it were found near Clementon, N. J., growing just 

 as Mr. Waters found it in Maryland, in low woods with the type 

 and with both Woodwardias not far off. — C. F. Saunders. 



In a recent memoir of the Torrey Botanical Club, there is 

 a key to the North American species of Vittaria founded on the 

 shape of the spores, paraphyses and scales. While it is an excel- 

 lent thing to have several ways of arriving at the identity of a 

 species it is to be hoped that keys like the one mentioned will not 

 become the principal ones for identifying plants. The fern 

 students' dislike of a compound microscope in identifying ferns 

 must not be set down entirely to mere indolence. The shape of 

 spores and cells may be well enough for microscopic things, but 

 when ferns are so nearly alike that a compound microscope is 

 necessary to distinguish them, it would be just as well to call 

 them the same species. 



