A New Fern Pest.—According to the British Fern Gazette a new pest threatens the specimens of those who collect living plants. This is the larva of a small weevil which gets into the stipes of the ferns and burrowing downward into the heart of the rhizomes soon cause the death of the plant. The weevil is of Australian origin, probably introduced into Britain with imported plants. Its scientific cognomen is Syagrius intrudens. At first its depredations were confined to ferns under glass, but more recently it has taken to the ferns in the wild state. This, however, is not the only enemy of the ferns that British growers have to contend with. Another small beetle known as the vine weevil (Otiorhyncus sulcatus) is fond of the plants both in the adult and larval stages, but the newcomer has already developed a reputation for destructiveness that places it first as a fern pest.

Walking Fern and Lime.—Nearly everybody who cultivates the walking fern (Camptosorus rhizophyllus), thinks it necessary to supply it with a quantity of old mortar, quick-lime or pieces of limestone under the impression that the fern cannot live, or at least cannot thrive without a considerable amount of calcium in the soil. As a matter of fact it has been reported on sandstone, shale, gneiss and granite and may possibly grow on others. Its noticed preference for limestone is apparently not due to its dependence on calcium but rather to the fact that it is more nearly adjusted to the plant covering of limestone rocks than it is to others. It will grow in any good garden soil, but in such situations it must be protected from its enemies, the ordinary weeds of cultivation, which otherwise would soon run it out. The same thing is true of many plants besides ferns. The cactus plant that cheerfully endures the intense insolation and frequent drouth of the sand barrens, succumbs very soon to the grass and weeds when planted in rich soil.

Stipe or Stipes.—When it comes to the designation of the stalk of a fern leaf, there is a wide difference in the way British and Americans regard it. Americans invariably speak of a single stalk as a stipe and they may be somewhat astonished, upon referring to a dictionary, to find that while stipe is given as a legitimate word, it comes direct from the latin Stipes which the Britons, with perhaps a more classical education, are accustomed to use. In America the plural of stipes is stipes or, rather, the plural of stipe is stipes; but in England the plural of both stipe and stipes is stipites. In certain uncultivated parts of our own country the singular form of the word species is given as specie; but when we smile at some countryman’s description of a specie of fern, our merriment may be somewhat tempered by the thought that we still say stipe instead of stipes. If we could only believe that we use stipe with full knowledge of its derivation, it would not seem so bad, but it is very evidently a case of plain ignorance.

Apogamy in Pellaea.—Apogamy, or the production of a new sporophyte from the gametophyte without the union of egg and sperm, used to be considered a rather rare phenomenon, but as more study is given the matter, it begins to seem fairly common. Several years ago Woronin reported apogamy in Pellaea flavens, P. niveus and P. tenera and still more recently W. N. Steil of the University of Wisconsin reported the same condition in our native Pellaea atropurpurea. In Steil’s specimens the young sporophytes were borne on the prothallus lobes near the notch. The same investigator is now working on apogamy in other species. A note in a recent number of this magazine asked for spores of Pellaea gracilis (Cryptogramma Stelleri) for this purpose.

Lycopodium lucidulum porophylum.—In the Ohio Naturalist for April Prof. J. H. Schaffner devotes several pages to a discussion of the specific distinctness of forms allied to Lycopodium lucidulum and comes to the conclusion that Lycopodium porophylum is a good species. If one is to judge by appearances alone, there can be no question as to L. lucidulum being different from L. porophylum but if the different appearances that plants put on under different conditions of warmth, light and moisture are to be considered then there are a number of fern species in this country in need of a name. Compare Woodsia obtusa grown on a sunny cliff with the same species grown on a moist one, or Equisetum arvense in woods and on railway banks. Nobody at present can say positively whether the form called porophyllum is a species or not. If it can be grown in moisture and shade while still retaining its characters, or if its spores will produce plants like the parent when sown in moist shades, then the case should be considered closed. Meanwhile, if one were to imagine a dry ground form of L. lucidulum what kind of a plant would he construct? Perhaps prostrate stem shorter; branches in a denser tuft, shorter; leaves less notched, smaller; whole plant yellower. Well, that is the description of L. porophylum!