102 Rhodora [JUNE 
to light, but on 15 January of this year I found Dicksonia in compara- 
tive abundance both at this locality and at a new one clearly inside 
Stoughton territory. At the North Stoughton-Avon locality, where 
the fern was growing in protected nitches of the rocks on both the 
east and west sides of the railroad cut, I collected some sixteen fronds 
(no. 2067, my herb.), ranging in length from a minute and doubtless 
very young nearly perfectly green plant about 8 mm. long to one 
12.5 cm. high with several pinnules or portions of pinnae brown and 
dead. 
At the Stoughton locality the plants grew for some distance along 
the eastern side of the railroad, in a situation to receive the afternoon 
sun, chiefly in crevices on the western face of a stone wall bordering 
a slope descending toward the track. Here some thirty-four fronds 
(nos. 2065, 2066), more or less completely green, were collected, show- 
ing about the same variation in size as the other lot though averaging 
rather larger. In several cases, where the stipe was comparatively 
short in relation to the lamina (e. g., 2 em. and 7.5 em.) it was very 
thickly covered with the brownish hairs, as though imperfect develop- 
ment of the stipe had compressed them into smaller compass than 
normal. Dr. Robinson, who has examined all these specimens, agrees 
with me in thinking that the occurrence of so many fresh green fronds 
of small size (6 em. long or less) can be explained only by supposing 
growth at favorable periods during the winter, which was exception- 
ally free from snow up to the date when the plants were collected. 
So far as I have been able to ascertain, the Hay-scented Fern has 
not previously been credited with ability to withstand frosts and 
wintry weather. It is not mentioned in the late Mr. Davenport’s 
notes on winter ferns, published in Rnopona in 1904. 
Botrychium obliquum, var. oneidense (Gilbert) Waters. In Ruo- 
DORA, xii, SO (April, 1910), this grape fern was recorded from eastern 
Massachusetts on the basis of specimens collected in Canton, 8 March, 
1909. Recent study of other specimens in my herbarium has con- 
vinced me that they represent the same form, and with this opinion 
Dr. Robinson, who has just examined them, agrees. "The following 
representative sheets — no. 254, rich wet open meadow, 27 November, 
1908; 273, very damp meadow, 13 February, 1909; 834, rich soil in 
meadow, 20 Sept., 1909 — from three different though adjacent 
spots in Stoughton, taken in connection with the Canton specimens, 
indicate that this variety 1s probably fairly well distributed in eastern 
