224 Rhodora . [SEPTEMBER 
scribed the fertile fronds of Osmunda cinnamomea as arising from the 
centre of a crown the sterile fronds of which surround the fertile 
in the form of a vase, and Mr. Clute, in his recent very beautiful fern 
book, has been the first to describe accurately the fact that the fertile 
fronds arise from the outside part of the series, and that the appear- 
ance of the mature plant is due to the angle of ascension through 
which the growing fronds reverse their natural order. 
It is possible, however to infer from Mr. Clute's description that 
the outer series is wholly composed of fertile, and the inner series of 
sterile fronds, but this is only partially correct, as, while the fertile 
fronds always arise from the outside, only a part of the outer series 
of crosiers develops sporophylls the number varying with the size of 
the plant; so that the outer series is most accurately described as 
consisting of both fertile and sterile fronds, while the inner series is 
always composed of sterile fronds. 
Perhaps this may be a little more clearly stated by saying that in 
the development of the growing plant from the crosiers the sterile 
fronds lean out at an angle that gradually brings the more erect fertile 
fronds within the radius of the whole series and thus gives to the 
mature plant the appearance which has been responsible for a popu- 
lar error. 
This is equally true of the other species of Osmunda, both Q. 
Claytoniana, and O. regalis developing their fertile fronds from the 
outer row of crosiers, while in Struthiopteris Germanica exactly the 
converse is true the fertile fronds being evolved from within the cen- 
tre of the vase-like series of sterile fronds. 
2. NEW STATIONS FOR ASPLENIUM EBENEUM, Aiton, VAR. Hor- 
TONAE, Davenport. — This very lovely fern which was described in 
RuopoRa for January (1901) as a “plumose” variety of the ebony 
spleenwort from Vermont, appears to have been found as long ago as 
1894, by Prof. C. E. Waters at a station on the Gunpowder river near 
Baltimore, Maryland. Prof. Waters at the time noticed the peculiar 
cutting of the frond, and made a blue print impression which is now 
in my possession, and which shows clearly enough the identity of 
his plant. Recently he has written me that he has seen a single 
frond of the variety in the Herbarium at Mt. Holyoke without data, 
but this I cannot personally vouch for. 
Another specimen which, through the courtesy of Mrs. Horton, I 
have seen, was collected by Mr. J. H. Ferriss on Carrion Crow Mt., 
