1901] Davenport, — Notes on New England Ferns —II 269 
that it began to look as if some unusually extreme condition had 
been selected for the type form. 
Finally, however, I began to find some ciliated indusia, and well 
into July both Miss Slosson and myself found lacerated and ciliated 
indusia in abundance. Thus contrary to my expectation of finding 
ciliated margins on the earliest fronds as appears to be the case with 
the California cycfosorum, they were not found until the later fronds of 
midsummer developed. 
About the middle of July Miss Slosson sent to me from Mattapoi- 
sett some fresh specimens with a large percentage of ciliated indusia, 
but as I was unable at the time to give them an immediate examina- 
tion the specimens were put under a loose pressure for temporary 
preservation, and when taken out later on were found to be appar- 
ently without cilia, the cilia having either dried up, or become rubbed 
off through pressure. This shows them to be extremely fugacious. 
It is certain also that when present in nature they gradually disap- 
pear as the sori mature, so that beyond a certain stage of develop- 
ment they are seldom seen. It is also certain that they occur more 
abundantly on some forms than on others, but I am convinced that 
so far as our New England forms are concerned they should not 
be figured as the type form for the species without at least some 
clearer explanations than are usually given. 
The sori in Athyrium filix-foemina exhibit three well marked forms, 
the first being nearly straight or slightly curved on the back, as in 
true Asplenium; the second being partially recurved at one end like 
a Bishop’s crook, and the third being wholly recurved like a horse- 
shoe in shape. In the latter form the two ends approach each other 
so closely as to make the sorus appear reniform, as in Wephrodium, 
. for which specimens have sometimes been mistaken. In some of the 
more delicate small field and woodland forms the small roundish 
matured sori look so much like those of PAegopteris that specimens are 
often very puzzling to novices, but a little attention to the cutting of the 
frond, and the venation, will soon overcome the difficulty. There is, 
too, an indefinable charm about the various forms of the Lady fern 
which soon enables one to know it from its peculiarly graceful motion 
by merely gently swaying a frond in the haud. 
In all three forms of the sori the indusium may be either entire, 
sinuated, toothed or jagged, and either with or without the hairlike 
projections called c/a, which gradually disappear with age. 
