margin of Mill-Creek, a few hundred yards below the village of Odessa, which is some thirteen or fourteen miles from Kingston, C. W. This is the Lycopodium apodum, Linn., Pursh, etc., Selaginella apus, Gray, Eaton, etc. I have it from Schooley's Mountain, (Mr. A. O. Brodie,) but it is rare in the United States. Being a minute moss-like species, it may be sometimes overlooked. It is admirably adapted for cultivation in a Ward's case, as it covers the soil with a very dense carpet of a most beautiful light green hue.

5. GULF-WEED AT CAPE SABLE.-The Nova Scotia newspapers contain accounts of great quantities of the gulf-weed (Sargassum bacciferum) having been thrown upon the shore at Cape Sable, by the gales of December, 1863; the Gulf-stream, it is alleged, being much nearer the land than usual.

6. POA LAXA, Hænke.-This rare alpine grass was found on the White Mountains by Principal Dawson, to whom I am indebted for specimens.

I

7. FLORA OF ANTICOSTI AND THE MINGAN ISLANDS. Mr. A. E. Verrill has published in the Boston Natural History Society's Proceedings a list of the plants collected at Anticosti and the Mingan Islands, by himself, Mr. A. Hyatt, and Mr. N. S. Shaler, who formed a party from the Museum of Comparative Zoology for the investigation of the geology, etc., of Anticosti, in 1861. The list contains 209 named species of flowering plants. note some of the more interesting: Anemone parviflora, S. W. Point; Thalictrum alpinum, Ranunculus Cymbalaria; Dryas integrifolia, Vahl., Mingan, and Anticosti, abundant; (D. Drummondii, attributed to Anticosti by Pursh was not met with ;) Rubus Chamamorus, abundant; R. arcticus; Saxifraga Groenlandica, L., very abundant at Mingan Islands. A very large number of specimens of this species collected at Mingan, proves, according to Prof. Gray, that S. Groenlandica, S. caespitosa, L., and S. exarata, Vill., are only forms of one species; S. aizoides, large variety, abundant at Anticosti, about limestone cliffs; S. aizoon, Niapisca Island Ligusticum Scoticum; Erigeron acre, (E. alpinum, Hook.,) narrow-leaved form, abundant on grassy banks near the mouth of Jupiter River; Rhodora Canadensis, L.; Loiseleuria procumbens, Primula farinosa, and P. Mistassinica; Mertensia maritima, a fern with glabrous leaves, was occasionally met with; Tarus Canadensis; Calypso borealis; Hierochloa borealis,

&c. Nineteen Orchids are enumerated, yet only two Carices, two grasses, and no Cryptogamia, so that there is still room for useful work at Anticosti and Mingan. The Kalmia latifolia of Mr. Billings's Anticosti list is no doubt K. Angustifolia, as Mr. Verrill suggests.

8. WOODSIA ALPINA (W. HYPERBOREA), A CANADIAN PLANT. -I am happy to be able to state definitely that this very rarefern is a native of Canada. Last winter several specimens of Woodsia were brought to me by my former pupil, Mr. Robt. Bell, B. A., who had gathered them in Gaspé in the previous year.. One of these could not be satisfactorily identified; and through Prof.. Torrey, I forwarded it to Mr. Daniel C. Eaton, who has made the American ferns a special study. He kindly took the trouble to compare it with authentic specimens in his rich herbarium of ferns, and with published figures and descriptions that were inaccessible at Kingston. He writes to me that he has now no doubt of the identity of the Gaspé fern with Woodsia hyperborea (W. alpina, S. F.. Gr.). He adds: "it is the first American specimen I have seen." Thus Pursh's record of the fern as occurring "in clefts of rocks, Canada," is confirmed. Mr. Eaton further points out that Major Raines's Oregon specimens referred to W. hyperborea by Sir William. Hooker, in his recent work on British ferns, do not really belong to that species; "they have not jointed stripes, nor a cilliate-cleft involucre, and belong to the Physematium section. I may state that my own specimens of W. alpina, from Norway, (Thos. Anderson, M.D.,) and Ben Lawers, Perthshire, (J. T. Syme, F.L.S.,) are very small fertile fronds, remarkably different in aspect from the comparatively large lax fronds from Gaspé (measuring nine inches in length). I therefore propose that the Gaspé plant should be distinguished as var. Belli, as I had described it in the "Synopsis of Canadian Ferns and Filicoid Plants"; but it must now be referred to W. alpina, not to W. glabella, as formerly. Although the latter species (W. glabella) is admitted by all authors as a Canadian fern, I know of no strictly Canadian habitat for it.. Mr. Charles H. H chcock tells me that he collected W. glabella sometime ago at Willoughby Mountain, Vermont, where it has become extremely scarce.

9. THE COMPASS PLANT OR POLAR PLANT.-It is a misfor-tune of botany that more time is required to clear up doubts and point out errors than for the pleasanter task of making

new discoveries. Yet it is work that must be done, and it is usually in fact by this very process that discoveries are eliminated. Lately some attention has been given by a phenomenon said to be exhibited by Silphium laciniatum on the prairies, and the most contradictory observations have been recorded. In 1862 Mr. W. Gorrie called the attention of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh to various notices of this plant, such for example as the following:

"But we had a guide to our direction unerring as the magnetic needle. We were traversing the region of the Polar Plant, the planes of whose leaves, at almost every step, pointed out our meridian. It grew upon our track, and was crushed under the hoof of our horses, as we rode onwards."-The Scalp Hunters, by Capt. Mayne Reid, p. 206.

"Whilst in the damper ground appeared the Polar Plant; that prairie compass, the plane of whose leaf ever turns towards the magnetic meridian."-The City of the Saints, by R. F. Burton, p. 60.

"Fortunately none go to the prairie for the first time without being shown, in case of such mishaps, the groups of compass-weed which abound all over the plains, the broad flat leaves of which point due north and south with an accuracy as unvarying as that of the magnetic needle itself."-The Prince of Wales in Canada, &c., by the Times's Special Correspondent, p. 300.

"On the uplands the grass is luxuriant, and occasionally is found the wild tea (Amorpha canescens) and the Pilot Weed, Silphium laciniatum."-Emory's Notes with the Advance Guard, p. 11.

"It is said that the planes of the leaves of this plant are coincident with the plane of the meridian; but those I have noticed must have been influenced by some local attraction that deranged their polarity."-Lieut. Albert's Notes in the same work.

"Patience," the Priest would say; "have faith, and thy prayer will be answered.

Look at this delicate plant that lifts its head from the meadow;
See how its leaves all point to the north, as true as the magnet.
It is the compass-flower, that the finger of God has suspended
Here on its fragile stock, to direct the traveller's journey
Over the sea-like, pathless, limitless waste of desert."

Longfellow's Evangeline.

What every body says must be true. The combined testimony

of Mayne Reid, Burton, the Times's Special, and Longfellow, added to the common belief of prairie men, cannot be gainsayed. Yet a cautious botanist will suspect that after all, the concurrent testimony may resolve itself into a snow-ball fancy, that has gathered as it rolled from book to book, and that the popular authorsquoted did not trouble themselves much about the accuracy of the fact. Prof. Asa Gray, our chief American botanist, does not confirm the exhibition of polarity by his observation of the plant in the Cambridge garden. In the same way, I could not make it out by observation of the plant for two years, although certainly in the single plant to which my observations were limited the stem-leaves did show a tendency towards a north and south direction. However in an "extra" from the American Journal of Science, given to me when on a recent visit to Prof. Gray at Cambridge, I find a communication from Mr. T. Hill, with observations made on the wild plants near Chicago,-Aug. 8, 1863. Only one plant, bearing four old leaves, gave an average angle with the meridian of more than 34°; their mean was 18° west. Of twentynine plants, bearing ninety-one leaves, the angles with the meridian were as follows: seven made angles greater than 35°; fifteen, angles between 35° and 20°; sixteen, angles between 20° and 8°; twenty-eight, angles between 8° and 1°; and twenty-five, angles less than 1°. Of the sixty-nine angles less than 20°, the mean is N. 0° 33' E., i. e. about half a degree east of the meridian. The error of observation may have been as much as three times this quantity. One half of the leaves bear within about balf a point of north, two-thirds within a point. In the Kingston specimen the first flower looked to the north, the others chiefly south.

10. BUXBAUMIA APHYLLA IN NOVA SCOTIA.--This rare and most remarkable of all the mosses grows on the hills three miles in the rear of the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was found with perfectly formed but green capsules on December 26, 1863.

11. PAROCHETUS COMMUNIS.-A herbaceous leguminous plant, new to gardens, and bearing the above name, was exhibited at the November (1863) meeting of the Edinburgh Botanical Society. It resembles the common white clover, but has blue flowers, and is said to be very pretty. This plant was introduced to Canada last year, a fine crop having been raised from seeds received. from Dr. Thomas Anderson, who obtained them at a high eleva tion on the Himalayas.

12. ACER NEGUNDO, FOLIIS VARIEGATIS.-In the Verzeichniss of our friend Mr. J. N. Haage, of Erfurt in Prussia, we observe a drawing and description of a beautiful variegated or silver leaved variety of the Acer Negundo,—or as it ought rather to be called, Negundo aceroides. This elegant variety will form a welcome It is for sale addition to the list of American ornamental trees.

in the European nurseries.

13. CANADIAN SPECIES OF EQUISETUM.--The following are described in Trans. Bot. Soc. Ed.: E. sylvaticum; E. umbrosum; E. arvense; E. arvense, var. granlatum; (a new and remarkable form from the Trent, near Trenton); E. Telmateja; E. limosum; E. hyemale; E. variegatum; E. scirpoides; and E. sc'rpoides, var. minor, the last from Gaspé (Mr. Robt. Bell). E. palustre is understood to grow in the northern parts of Canada.

14. SEQUOIA LAWSONIANA.--Messrs P. Lawson & Son of Edinburgh have raised a new Conifer from California seeds, which has been named Sequoia Lawsoniana.

15. YUCCA FILAMENTOSA.---This fine southern plant is quite hardy in Canada. Its specific name refers to the numerous threads or filaments which hang from the margins of the leaves.

16. CLERODENDRON THOMSONE, Balfour, (Mrs. Thompson's Clerodendron). This handsome plant was transmitted by the Rev. W. C. Thompson from Old Calabar, on the west coast of Africa, and flowered at the Botanic Garden of Edinburgh, in December, 1861. It is a shrubby twining plant, producing showy flowers, and will soon be seen in all our hot-houses. Prof. Balfour gave a full description of it some time ago, accompanied by a beautiful drawing from the pencil of Dr. Greville. (Trans. Bot. Soc. Edin., vol. vii, p. 2.) It had not then shown fruit, which however has been subsequently produced, and is now described, with elegant drawings. Prof. Balfour states that the fruit consists of four achens, which when ripe assume a shining black color externally. Between the achens, and attached to their surface, but not appearing on the peripheral side, there is a bright red cellular coat, which enlarges as the fruit ripens. separating the achens, which ultimately appear as four distinct. seed-vessels, covered on their upper surface (commissure), with a succulent rugose mass of cells of a bright scarlet color. The surface oil-globule-bearing cells are described as of a glandular nature. We have here apparently a beautiful example of glan