184 Rhodora [ SEPTEMBER 
Christmas fern, Aspidium acrostichoides, in texture resembling Poly- 
podium vulgare, but with the fronds longer and more deeply cut. On 
the slope of Fall Mountain, in Walpole, I found a single clump of the 
variety ézcisum, with the pinnae curiously cut and crisped, but hardly 
so attractive as in the type. 
The Woodsias are represented here by two species. W. //vensis is 
found in patches on exposed rocks and cliffs. As the elevation and 
exposure to sunlight increase the plant becomes very stunted and 
chaffy, but in shaded places the green fronds rival in length those of 
its scarcer relative, W. obtusa. The latter species has thus far been 
found only on the slopes of Fall Mountain, but there it grows on an 
earthy bank with Cystopteris fragilis, a species which loves best the 
dripping, shaded rocks by streams. 
All three of the Osmundas grow here. The flowering fern, O. 
regalis, with only the tips fertile, is stunted and yellow in dry soil, but 
tall and green in the swamps. The interrupted fern, O. C/aytoniana, 
is more frequent here than the cinnamon fern, O. cinnamomea, and it 
apparently fruits somewhat later. The sterile fronds of these two 
species are not readily separated ata glance, but in the cinnamon 
fern there is a tuft of wool at the base of each pinna, while the pinnae 
of the interrupted fern are naked at base. 
I came from a region where one plant of the ostrich fern, Onoclea 
Struthiopteris, was a carefully protected garden treasure, and, natu- 
rally, it has been a constant revelation to me to see, even along the 
roadsides, the rank profusion of this splendid fern. It is in the allu- 
vial soil of the river banks, however, that the plants become tropical 
in their size and royal bearing. On the deep, black alluvium near the 
Connecticut I found one day half an acre of these ferns. The great 
crowns, with the slightly overlapping fronds, rose to the height of 
several feet, and it seemed a pity to brush through such a luxuriant 
growth. Each frond is a perfect production in itself, in form like the 
feather from which it so aptly takes its name. From the centre of the 
crown come the thick, twisted fruiting fronds. ‘These are not gene- 
rally found; but even more of a surprise was the discovery by one 
member of the school who found, in place of fruiting fronds, a nest 
of the Maryland yellow-throat — truly a royal home for the young 
songsters. 
Growing beside these plants, — indeed often mingling with them — 
are the broad, more herbaceous fronds of the sensitive fern, Onoclea 
