It is a mistake to think that removing the fronds, even in 

 autumn, does no harm to the plants. Gathering the fronds late 

 in the year injures the plants less than at other seasons, but it 

 may be safely assumed that so long as the fronds are green the 

 plant has use for them. Here seems to be a good opportunity for 

 the plant protection societies to do some missionary work. Any 

 person willing to exterminate our ferns at $2.50 a wagon load 

 ought to be converted. — American Botanist. 



DODGE'S FERN. 



The person who is continually using scientific names and 

 who understands their meaning, is apt to decry the use of "popu- 

 lar" names for plants: and indeed it is a question if the amateur 

 who uses them is not robbing himself, for he will often find 

 plants that have no common names and he will be unable to 

 speak of them intelligently. There is no good reason why the 

 Latin names of ferns should not become as "popular"' as Dahlia. 

 Fuchsia and hosts of others- that are in every day use. The 

 writer of popular books is often hard pressed to supply this de- 

 mand for "easy" names, and frequently complies by coining a 

 word. An instance of this is seen in a recent work on ferns 

 where Nephrodium simulation Dav. is spoken of as the "Massa- 

 chusetts fern." It strikes me this name is particularly unfor- 

 tunate ; first, because it was not discovered in Massachusetts, but 

 at Seabrook. N. H. : secondly, it was brought to notice, as was 

 the hybrid shield-fern, by Raynal Dodge, a close student of New 

 England fern life, compiler of a manual of our New England 

 Pteridophytes, and a good collector and observer, a man who has 

 added much to our knowledge of plants in the little time allowed 

 from the busy life of a machinist, and it should rightly bear his 

 name. It is to be hoped that in future this will be spoken of not 

 as the "Massachusetts," but as "Dodge's" fern. — A. A. Baton in 

 American Botanist. 



In the Ohio Naturalist for November, the bracken is in- 

 cluded in a list of poisonous plants upon the supposition that 

 it is poisonous to horses and cattle. 



