NOTES. 
THE GAMETOPHYTE OP BOTRYCHIUM VIRGINIA- 
HUM.— At the suggestion of Dr. Scott, the following note on the 
gametophyte of Boirychium virginianum has been prepared by 
the writer. 
The account is slightly modified from an abstract published in the 
proceedings of the Canadian Institute, Vol. i, Part I, 1897. A full 
description with the necessary plates and references to the literature 
will shortly appear in the Transactions of the Canadian Institute. 
A complete description of the gametophyte of the Ophioglossaceae 
has long been a desideratum. Since the discovery by Mettenius, in 
1856, of the subterranean prothallium of Ophioglossum pedunculosum , 
and by Hofmeister, in 1857, of that of Boirychium Lunaria , nothing 
has been added till recently to their necessarily incomplete accounts 
of the gametophyte in these species. Our latest knowledge on this 
subject is derived from a brief description of rather advanced material 
of the prothallium of Botrychium virginianum found in 1893 at 
Grosse Isle, Michigan, by Professor Douglas Campbell, which was 
published in the proceedings of the Oxford meeting of the British 
Association in 1894. 
A more extended description of the same material, together with 
an account of the first stages in the germination of the spores of 
B. virginianum and Ophioglossum , appeared in his ‘Development 
of Mosses and Ferns’ (1895). These prothallia did not, however, 
supply the stages in the development of the sexual organs and the 
sporophyte. 
During the summer of 1895, the writer secured a large number 
of prothallia of the same species at Little Metis in the Province of 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XI. No. XLIII. September, 1897.] 
