94 
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
Relation of Plants to the Soil.— The botanist is 
often able to judge the nature of the soil by the plant 
growing upon it. Some plants seem made for sterile soils 
and rarely grow elsewhere. The old story of the blind 
man who went to buy a farm well illustrates this point. 
Dismounting from his horse he ordered it tied to a mullein 
stalk, but after a search none could be found. He then 
decided that a stalk of dock would do. Upon being told 
that there were plenty of docks about he at once concluded 
the bargain, saying that docks are always found in fertile 
land and mulleins never. 
Fernworts as Weeds.— In a recent number of The 
Fern Bulletin Prof. C. E. Bessey notes that one ot the fern 
allies, Ma rsi/ia vestita, has been sent him with the inform- 
ation that it is becoming troublesome in certain wet 
meadows. In another number of the same journal Prof. 
R. S. Cocks writes that the little water fern (Azolla Caro- 
liniana), which is individually so small that a whole plant 
may be covered by a silver dime, grows in such abundance 
on a pond in Audubon Park, New Orleans, that no less 
than fourteen cartloads, weighing nearly seven tons, were 
removed during the summer. The lake is only about a 
quarter of an acre in extent. 
Extermination of Rhododendrons.— The common 
rhododendron {Rhododendron maximum) grows in im- 
mense quantities along the southern Alleghanies and it 
will be many years before it is threatened with extinction, 
but further north the plant is rarer and when the commer- 
cial instinct stirs in the owners of these outlying clumps 
the fact is to be deplored. An instance of this kind has 
just come to notice. An individual near Kingston, R. I., is 
offering rhododendrons from that region at a rate that 
seems to threaten the very existence of the plant. In this 
case, however, the dealer is beyond the influence of the 
plant protection societies, because, owning the land, he 
can do as he pleases with the plants. When plants are 
suflficiently valuable to tempt the cupidity of man, senti- 
ment is of no effect in protecting them. 
