BULDGLETIN 
TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB. 
The Altitudinal Distribution of the Ferns of the Appalachian 
Mountain System. 
By JOHN K. SMALL. 
The following paper is a small portion of the results obtained 
in collecting and tabulating the altitudes observed and recorded 
for the plants of the East American Flora. The work was fin- 
ished last winter, but was then, and is still, withheld from publica- 
tion in order that more observations may be secured. It is too 
incomplete as yet to furnish any exact conclusions, and this part 
is here presented for the purpose of calling attention to this still 
almost entirely unknown department of Eastern North American 
Botany. 
Careful and systematic altitudinal observations of plant sta- 
tions have for a long time been recorded in England, and in the — 
last few years the work has been prosecuted to some extent by 
_ Dr. C. Hart Merriam and his assistants in the pursuit of his bio- 
logical survey for a portion of Arizona, especially in the vicinity 
of San Francisco Mountain. But in the eastern part of our con- 
tinent, where the floral features are perhaps better known than 
anywhere else in North America, there is practically nothing on 
record concerning it. It is hoped that this preliminary contribu- 
tion will excite an interest in the subject among our botanists 
and lead them to observe and record, as nearly correct as pos- 
sible, the altitudes of the plants with which they may meet, 
especially in the Farr Mountain aula and the contigu- — 
ous edeset ~ 
