—33— 



A technical description would read as follows: Trunk bi- 

 lobed, medium-sized; leaves, 6-30, or sometimes 50, 5-2ocm. long, 

 with numerous stomata and 4 bast-bundles. Velum variable, 

 usually very narrow in outer leaves, two-thirds indusiate in inner 

 ones. Sporangia orbicular in outer, narrowly oblong on inner 

 leaves, usually spotted, mostly densely so, and shining dark 

 brown or black with the abundance of cells. Sheath fuscous 

 brown, deeply grooved, thus appearing bilobed in cross-section- 

 Ligule very variable, now short triangular, now 4mm. long. 

 Microspores about 300 in a full-sized sporangium, 480^ in diam- 

 eter, covered rather sparingly with low, blunt, isolated or con- 

 volute confluent crests. Microspores 22-30//, light brown, covered 

 with low blunt tubercles or spines. 



I. Nuttalli (/. Suksdorfi Baker). In my study of this 

 species I found that no collector met it after the discovery of- 

 Suksdorfi, from which it differed only in being bilobed. Suspect- 

 ing an error in description, I wrote Prof. Trelease, who kindly 

 had Mr. Thompson examine Engelmann's material, which proved 

 to be trilobed, thus confirming my suspicions and reducing 

 Suksdorfi to a synonym. 

 Seabrook, N. H. 



OUR correspondent's note in the January issue respecting 



the nature of the habitat of Lygodium ftahnatum prompts 



me to state that of the six or seven places in the New 

 Jersey pines where I have collected the species, only one could 

 be regarded as bordering on the inaccessible. That was a thicket 

 of close set saplings, shrubs and cat-briars, but the fern was not 

 abundant there. The most luxuriant growth of the climbing 

 fern known to me, is on the steep bank of a creek flowing through 

 rather open pine woods, where its fronds twist about the small 

 shrubbery that fringes the water, or clamber up the bank, and 

 may be gathered without a scratch. I have also collected it on 

 clear but shady sphagnous ground along a wagon road which 

 skirts a wood within a few hundred yards of a railroad station. 

 Another locality, which left a pleasant picture in my memory, 

 was a shaded sphagnum lowland in the pines, where the under- 

 growth consisted of numerous erect, sparingly branched under- 

 shrubs (what kind I do not now recall), about which the Lygo- 

 dium plants twined like so many little hop vines about their 

 poles.— C. F. Saunders, Philadelphia. 



THE HABITAT OF LYGODIUM. 



