Vol. VI., No. 37.] BULLETIN OF THE TORREY Botanical Cus. [New York, Jan., 1878. 
§ 207. VERNATION IN BOTRYCHIA, 
With special reference to its importance as a means for distin- 
guishing the different species. 
The difficulty in being able at all times to distinguish and separate 
the different species of Botrychium, on account of the numerous 
intermediate forms that apparently connect them with one another, 
has led many excellent botanists to regard all of the smaller species 
as modifications of one original type, and even to connect them with 
the larger species through a graduated succession of forms. Thus 
B. Virginianum is reduced through the Var. gracile to B. lanceolatum, 
which passes through 2. matricariaefolium into B. Lunarta, which, 
in its turn, passes into B, simplex, the ternate form of which con- 
nects by another graduated series with B. fernatum. The differ- 
ence in the time of the fructification of the several species in this 
arrangement is apparently lost sight of, or regarded as of no conse- 
quence. But this theory, in place of relieving, tends rather to increase 
perplexity, and makes the study of the genus even more difficult, 
as, after all, it does not lead to any satigfactory conclusion, or uni- 
formity among botanists, and, at best, can only be considered as an 
easy but very unscientific method of evading difficulties that a more 
searching investigation would overcome. Me 
All of these difficulties, however, come from relying too much up- 
on merely external characters, and not paying sufficient attention to 
the internal structure and organs of reproduction. No good species 
can exist without possessing characters by which it may at all times 
be identified. Sometimes these characters are conspicuous, while at 
other times they are so concealed as to require a very careful 
examination to discover them, but in some form or other they are 
always present. <7! 
That the different species of Botrychium are distinctly char- 
acterized I have ‘no doubt whatever. But the many intermediate 
forms that occur show that external characters at times are not to 
be depended upon for distinguishing the different species under all 
of their modifications. Happily each species contains within itself 
unvarying characters by which we may at all times recognize it, and 
these characters are to be found either in the buds or spores. 
_ As the character of the spores can only be determined by a very 
high microscopical power, I shall not describe them in my present 
paper, but confine myself to a description of the buds, the form of 
which can be readily seen with an ordinary pocket lens, and in the 
larger specimens with the naked eye, thus being within the reach of 
ordinary observation. _ 
Having examined a large number of buds, in living and pressed 
specimens, of all our North American Botrychi ums, I have found that, 
however much a species varies in its external characters, the form of 
the bud always remains the same. 
In B. ternatum and in B. Virginianum the buds are pilose, but 
differ so much from each other in form that there would be no 
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