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narrow, the whole frond very delicate and extremely sensitive to a 
dry atmosphere, I might almost say, to the touch. After picking my 
fernery specimen, I was obliged to rua with it up stairs to put it 
immediately in press, as the tips of the pinnae had already begun to 
roll inward toward the rachis. In this St. Augustine locality I 
searched vainly for fruit. When I first gathered the Halifax River 
specimens, I could not believe it to be the same fern, until a careful 
study of the description in Chapman, and comparison of venation, 
shape of frond, etc., of the two plants, convinced me that the two 
were of the same species. ‘The Halifax specimens were larger every 
way—usually a foot or eighteen inches long—much more vigorous, 
firmer in texture, and mich less sensitive. In the fernery the two 
plants seem to preserve their difference in appearance. I was also 
- made happy by finding, under the direction of Mr. Chamberlin, the 
beautiful Adiantum Capillus-Veneris, L., growing in rich hummock- 
land where wild oranges and other trees made a constant shade. 
Little mounds or depressions were the haunts of my charmer. Last 
year’s fronds were all gone, or rather the pinnae had dropped, leav- 
ing the shining black, wiry stems standing upright, and spreading 
out their slim fingers, while the baby fronds were coming up around 
them. Some were old enough to be well fruited, while others were 
very tender, and of a lovely pink color. A fine cluster of the 
Epidendrum venosum, Lindl., looked down upon us from their proud 
height, about eighteen feet above ground, upon the smooth trunk of 
a Magnolia grandiflora. After a hard climb, my brother succeeded 
in poking off the small onion-like bulbs, and the prize was ours. 
E. conopseum, Ait., is quite common around St. Augustine, but I have 
never found E. venosum there, Other air-plants—Zv//andsia re- 
curvata probably—formed pretty grey rosettes on the trees. Young 
tender fronds of Polypodium aureum, L., graced the numberless Pal- 
metto trees, but Jack Frost had destroyed all the old fronds, and on 
these new-comers the fruit-dots were still pure white, and too young 
to be collected. The firm, brown, shining stems, and chaff-covered 
rootstocks of this fern are very interesting. Fruit-dots were begin- 
ning to appear upon Asfidium patens, Swartz, and A. Floridanum, 
Chap. The long line-wide fronds of Vittaria lineata, Swartz, were 
always ready to be gathered, while the fruit of Osmunda regalis and 
O. cinnamomea, which grow finely here, was already gone. <Acros- 
tichum aureum, L., the only fern with which I am acquainted which 
loves salt water, was sending up its great fresh fronds. It grows in 
creeks and inlets from the sea, with its rootstocks in the salt water, 
and is perhaps almost an aquatic plant. The most northerly limit 
of which I know is twenty miles south of St. Augustine, 
Mary C. REYNOLDs. 
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’ 
