It is earnestly requested that contributions of Mosses for the State Herbarium from every County in Ohio be made. Please send an ample amount of each kind, enclosed in a temporary paper pocket or envelope; with each specimen lay a slip of paper or temporary label, giving locality, date and collector’s name, also any notes that are made with reference to habitat or habit of the plants. The donor’s name and other data will be placed on the permanent label accompanying the herbarium specimens.
ADDITIONAL NOTE ON THE SYNDESMON INVOLUCRE.
A. Wetzstein.
In addition to the observations made by Mr. F. H. Burglehaus, Toledo, Ohio, concerning the involucral leaves of Syndesmon thalictroides Hoffmg., as stated in No. 5 of the Ohio Naturalist, I also confirm the contradiction in the habitus of plants growing in Auglaize County with the description in Britton & Brown’s Flora. All specimens I found here have no sessile involucral leaves, but petioles mostly about one-fourth of an inch in length. Especially the later flowering plants, that often grow over one foot high, show petioles of more than one-half inch in length, while even the earliest—collected about the middle of April, and no more than three inches high—exhibit distinctly petioled involucral leaves.
It might be very interesting to find out the range of plants with sessile involucres—for I do not at all think this description of Syndesmon to be an error in so carefully prepared a Flora as Britton & Brown’s is, the more as the given figure shows strictly sessile involucres too.
St. Marys, Ohio.
MEETINGS OF THE BIOLOGICAL CLUB.
FEBRUARY MEETING.
The meeting of the Biological Club, held in the Zoological lecture room on the evening of February 4th, 1901, was presided over by the president, Prof. Osborn, about thirty being present.
Prof. Lazenby presented “Remarks on Poisonous Plants.” He mentioned many of the poisons to which the poisonous properties of various plants are due. Many cases of poisoning are caused by poisonous fungi gathered with edible mushrooms, and greens gathered by persons unacquainted with poisonous herbs. Stramonium has been known to cause cases of poisoning by being gathered in greens. The distribution of poisonous plants through the various botanical orders was discussed, and the fact was revealed that a large percentage of the orders contain such species.