422 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
but a short time. It will be useless to watch much before midnight (of 
November 13-14). 
The Sun Spots. — The sun’s surface has continued to be much disturbed 
during the past three months. It is as yet uncertain whether the maximum 
of disturbance has been attained. Several of the spots which have recently 
appeared have been of surprising dimensions, and it seems likely that for 
.several months to come the telescopist will find the sun a most interesting 
object for observation. 
The Planets. — Jupiter is the only planet which will be well placed for 
observation during the next quarter. 
BOTANY. 
A netcly -introduced Fern has been described by Dr. Maxwell T. Masters 
in the Gai'denet's' Chronicle (Sept. 11), under the name of Davallia Mooreana. 
Dr. Masters describes it as being a very beautiful plant, and the figure he 
gives is that of a frond of extreme delicacy. The plant is a native of 
Borneo, whence it was introduced by Mr. Lobb to the collection of Messrs. 
Veitch and Sons, by whom it has been exhibited during the past season, and 
who have received for it the award of a First-class Certificate. Dr. Masters 
states that he has specimens of what appears to be the same fern gathered 
in the New Hebrides by McGillivray. The rhizome, which is as stout 
as one’s little finger, is of a less rapidly elongating habit than in many 
other Davallias, and appears to prefer to grow half embedded in the soil ; 
it is clothed with naiTOw lanceolate dark-brown scales, which are some- 
what toothed at the margin. The stipes is about the thickness of a stout 
straw, from a foot to a foot and a half long, quite smooth and pale-coloured, 
as are also the somewhat slender rachides. The fronds, independently 
of the stipites, are from 2 to 3 feet long, and from 1 to 2 feet wide at 
the base, triangular and pointed, of a graceful arching habit of growth, 
and most elegantly cut into a multitude of small blunt oblique sori- 
ferous segments. Their colour is a pale green, and they are very remarkable 
for the dotted appearance presented by the upper surface from the promi- 
nence of the sori. The obliquely ovate pinnules (secondary) are about an 
inch long or rather more, the pinnulets (tertiar}" pinnules) from a quarter to 
half an inch long. The sori have the elongate cup-shaped form of those of 
the true Davallias, but, apparently on account of the bulging in the upper 
surface, the indusium is almost flat. It should be added that the plant is 
quite diflercnt from the I). Moorei of Hooker. 
Distribution of the Table Motmtain Pine (Pinus punyots) in Anienca. — So 
much discrepancy of opinion exists in regard to the distribution of this plant 
that Mr. .1. T. Rothrock gives a note embodying his own experience on the 
subject in the American Naturalist for Augu.st. Michaux anticipated that 
it would l>e the first of American trees to become extinct, because its limits 
were so narrow and its habitat so easy of access, and so frequently swept 
over by fire. Nuttall states “its range is so wide that we have no reason to 
fear it** extirpation.’’ Chapman finds it on the “mountains, rarely west of 
