Rhodora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 24. July, 1922. No. 283. 
CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE GRAY HERBARIUM OF 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY.—NEW SERIES, No. LXVI. 
POLYPODIUM VIRGINIANUM AND P. VULGARE 
M. L. FERNALD. 
In eastern America we are so used to designating our common 
Polypody of rocky woods as Polypodiwm vulgare L. and the hosts of 
fern-specialists who have studied our ferns during the last three- 
fourths of a century have so universally followed this usage, that to 
many people it may seem.as if our fern has a vested right to the 
name. When, however, we look into the original treatment of 
Linnaeus in the Species Plantarum, it is at. once clear that he re- 
stricted the name P. vulgare exclusively to the plant of Europe (* Habi- 
tat in Europa rimis rupium"); while to the plant of eastern America 
(“Habitat in Virginia") he assigned the name P. virginianum. 
Linnaeus also included under P. virginianum a citation of one of 
Plumier's West Indian plates and a reference to Petiver which do 
not belong with the Virginian plant, but the source of his name was 
clearly the Polypodium virginiense minus, folis obtusioribus of 
Morison’s Plant Hist. Univ. Oxon. iii. 563, sect. 14, t. 2, fig. 3 (1715), 
published with a good illustration and very fair description of the 
common Polypody of eastern America. Morison’s conventionalized 
figure showed the rootstock unusually clean of scales (although 
occasional herbarium-specimens of the American plant have almost 
! L. Sp. Pl. ii. 1085 (1753). 
