50 Rhodora (Marcu 
Any collection of such size, belonging to a botanist of Davenport’s 
reputation, will contain some rejicienda in the form, for example, of 
scraps sent in for identification by thoughtless correspondents. And 
any unmounted collection, no matter if, as in this case, it is preserved 
with pious care, is liable to mishaps such as the loss of labels. Daven- 
port’s has not escaped; there are in it a considerable number of 
specimens totally without data. But, after all deductions from such 
causes have been made, there remains a mass of material of very real 
value and sometimes of unexpected interest—as when there turned up 
a frond from one of the isotypes of Aspidium mohrioides Bory, de- 
scribed from the Falkland Islands in 1828, or when there were found 
some half dozen ample collections of European Botrychium matri- 
cariaefolium, previously represented at Cambridge by two meager 
specimens. This residue—and it is large—forms a very welcome 
addition to the Gray Herbarium; some further account of what it 
contains may be of interest. 
First and foremost come the types of all the species and varieties 
described by Davenport except those listed above as at the Horti- 
cultural Society. Of all these latter there are isotypes, if some frag- 
ments of Cheilanthes fibrillosa! and a single pinna of C. Parishii may 
be so regarded. In several cases, the types are accompanied by larger 
or smaller amounts of duplicate material. It may be doubted if there 
is anywhere else so large and fine a set of Asplenium Pringlei as Daven- 
port possessed. 
Davenport did not collect extensively himself. His own specimens 
are mostly of ferns from localities readily accessible from his home 
in Medford, or taken from his garden. They are commonly chosen to 
illustrate variation, or they form large duplicate series of species or 
forms in which he was especially interested—the Botrychia, Thelyp- 
teris cristata X marginalis, T. simulata, and crested forms of the 
marsh fern and the pasture fern. With these, and with sets received 
from Pringle and Mrs. E. H. Terry in Vermont, William Stout in 
1In view of the fact that this species is still known only from the scanty type 
collection, it may be of interest to record that there is another isotype in the herbarium 
of Brown University. C. fibrillosa was detected by Davenport (according to a letter 
of his to D. C. Eaton, Feb. 4, 1885) among a set of specimens of Cheilanthes collected 
by Parish for William Stout. They arrived after Stout's death and were sent by his 
sister, Miss Anna E. Stout, to Davenport for examination. He kept a comparatively ə 
small portion of the material of C. fibrillosa for himself, returning the rest to Miss 
Stout. Later she gave her brother's herbarium to Brown. The specimen of C. 
fibrillosa there is probably the best in existence. 
