i5 
MacDougaL — Symbiotic Saprophytism. 
Corallorhiza , immediately below the usual bulb or corm, which 
also had the ordinary rootlets. Each plant had the green 
leaf which the species sends up in autumn. The coral-like 
roots appear to be parasitic on the partly decayed bark of 
a tree-root. A large number of plants of the species (much 
more than one hundred), taken from the same locality at 
different times, presented no such peculiarity. This is an 
interesting and significant discovery, and, as Professor Gray 
(to whom I sent my specimens) adds, “ indeed unexpected.” 
I beg to call the attention of botanists to it, that we may learn 
whether the peculiarity exists elsewhere, and, if so, to what 
extent.’ By the kindness of Professor B. L. Robinson I was 
able to examine the specimen collected by Mr. Gilman and 
sent to Professor Gray. It consists of a corm with the 
mature leaf attached, and the usual number of roots. 
Attached to an internode from which roots arise is a portion 
of a slightly branched coralloid offshoot. The offshoot is 
evidently one which has arisen from a parent corm which had 
been separated, leaving it attached to the young plant. The 
offshoot always arises from a median internode of the parent 
corm, and of course joins the young corm at its base, as the 
young corm is the enlarged apical internode of the offshoot. 
No anatomical investigation could be made of this specimen 
on account of its historical value, but the brown strands of 
mycorhizal filaments could be seen adhering to the roots and 
coralloid branches. 
The writer collected a number of specimens near Lake 
Minnetonka, Minnesota, in September, 1897. Of these, four 
plants adhered in such manner as to form a clump. The 
clump was found to consist of a parent corm, the upper 
internode of which was plump and turgid, while the two 
lower ones were shrunken in such manner as to be quite 
obscure ; from the latter arose three- offshoots, bearing four 
plants of different sizes. The largest plant arose from an 
offshoot composed of three internodes with the surface 
roughened, and each giving off a short coralloid branch. 
A smaller plant was borne on an offshoot consisting of five 
