THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



25 



rises through the stem of the funnel and displaces the water in 

 the test tube. This method is often quite slow, several days 

 sometimes being required to catch a test tube of the gas. 

 Harry B. Heimburger, of DePauw University, seems to have 

 discovered an improvement on this method, in which, by using 

 land plants as a source of the gas, he is able to secure from 

 sixty to eighty cubic centimeters of gas in four hours, a much 

 greater quantity than could be secured from water plants in the 

 same time. The specimens which gave the best results were 

 young shoots of the sweet clover with approximatelv 100 

 leaves, but catnip leaves are known to be nearly as good, and 

 CA'en red clover, wild lettuce Snd burdock mav be used. By 

 this method sufficient gas may be secured for a test "while you 

 wait." When leaves of land plants are used, however, it has 

 been found necessary to add carbon dioxide to the water. 

 This is accomplished by placing some chips of limestone or 

 marble in a test tube and covering them with hydrochloric acid. 

 The gas evolved may be led into the water by means of a glass 

 or rubber tube, care being taken to prevent the carbon dioxide 

 from bubbling up beneath the glass funnel. The whole per- 

 formance, of course, should be carried on in sunlight. 



Ostrich Ferx Rexamed. — Some years ago, when L. 

 Underwood dug up the long buried name of Maffcucia and ap- 

 plied it to the well-known ostrich fern, there was considerable 

 protest, for the plant had so long been known as Onoclea or 

 Struthiopteris that a change of names seemed quite unneces- 

 sary. Besides, the name of Struthiopteris which had always 

 before been connected with the fern either as a generic or spe- 

 cific designation, is usually translated as meaning "ostrich 

 fenr ' and thus had a double right to stand as the name of this 

 fern. It now appears that the fern is not to rest under the 

 genus name of Mattciicia; at least a still older name for the 

 plant has been found. J. A. Xieuwland has recently shown 

 that Rafinesque earlier named the fern Ptcrctis and if the name 

 tinkerers are either logical or sincere, they will, of course, at 



