182 Rhodora [SEPTEMBER 
prevailing wind of the region, and in evidence have pointed out large 
patches in the open' where the light is essentially uniform from all 
directions. 
Often mixed with the Dicksonia, but as frequently growing by itself, 
is the lady-fern, Asplenium Filix-femina, easily distinguished 
from the other by its stouter, smoother, and more succulent fronds. 
Along the roadsides and in open places the fronds are now (early 
August) brownish and straggling from the weight of the fruit; but in 
spite of the unattractive appearance of this fern, its soil variations 
are striking and exceedingly baffling. I find it difficult to reconcile 
as forms of the same species the plant of the dry roadsides and of 
the wooded swamp not a hundred yards away ; yet the diverse forms 
are so numerous and inconstant that it seems almost hopeless to 
attempt any definite characterization of them. 
In rich, shaded soil, especially in alluvium, I have occasionally 
found the rarer Asplenium thelypteroides. In order to distinguish this 
fern, at first sight, from the ostrich-fern, one must have a long 
acquaintance with the plant. In the ostrich-fern, however, the 
pinnae are firmer, more crowded and more over-lapping than in the 
more herbaceous frond of the Asplenium; and, furthermore, if the As- 
plenium is in fruit all doubt as to its identity will be removed, for an 
examination of the under side of the frond will reveal the elongated 
fruit dots characteristic of the genus. 
Other representatives of this genus here are Asplenium ebeneum and 
A. Trichomanes, often found side by side on shaded, moss-grown 
rocks. The ebony fern, Æ. ebeneum, is the taller and more upright of 
the two plants, with a smooth, stout, black stipe and rhachis, while 
A. Trichomanes, the smaller of the two, occurs in dense spreading 
tufts, a few green fronds often rising from a mass of dead, brown 
stems, the remnants from many previous years. 
Most interesting to me of the Alstead Aspleniums is a bed of A. 
angustifolium, at what may be its easternmost station. The only 
patch found was by the course of a spring brook, in rich, alluvial 
woods near the Cold River, only a few miles from its junction with 
the Connecticut. So closely did the plant resemble, at first sight, the 
Christmas fern, that it was not until I had passed my hand over the 
fronds and examined them more carefully that I noticed the difference. 
The fronds are longer and more spreading, and of such delicate tex- 
ture that they wilt as quickly as the maiden-hair, Adiantum pedatum, a 
