Tillandsia usneoides, popularly called "long moss," "black moss," or " Spanish moss," is the most widely distributed representative of the tropical and subtropical family Bromeliaceae. According to SCHIMPER (I) it extends from southern Virginia, its northern limit, as far southward as the Argentine Confederation. It forms everywhere a conspicuous and characteristic object of the landscape, its long gray festoons adorning not only trees of the virgin forest but many cultivated ones as well. Although the beauty of the landscape is enhanced by its presence, its growth upon ornamental trees is regarded often with apprehension, a common impression being that it lives parasitically. A most casual examination, however, will reveal the fact that the moss is in no way connected with the tree, but merely wraps its dead, wiry stems loosely around the twigs in order to support itself. Old festoons which have hung in the same place for years occasionally show a connection with the bark, the annual growths of the limb finally enclosing some of the decorticated moss stems; much in the same way that an old horseshoe hung astride a branch and left unmoved for a long time will be partially enclosed. An indirect cause of the popular belief in the parasitism of Tillandsia is its preference for sunny exposures. This habit would tend to keep it from trees having a dense shade. In dark forests it hangs suspended from the higher limbs of tall trees, especially those that are dead. Many a cultivated tree when in perfectly healthy condition possesses too dense foliage to serve as a host for Tillandsia, but if for some reason the supply of leaves should be reduced, the light conditions might be such as to make the presence of the epiphyte possible. Should it make its appearance, the owner of the tree would be very apt to regard the moss as the cause rather than the result of the reduced foliage. A proof of the true epiphytism of the plant is its longcontinued and vigorous growth upon decorticated limbs of dead trees. Near Baton Rouge are many such trees, killed by girdling long ago,