The Home of Botrychium pumicola 



By Frkderick V. Covii.le 

 (With Plate 7) 



In the summer of 1897 the writer, with Mr. E. I. Applegate, 

 acting as assistant, and a camp hand, was engaged in an investiga- 

 tion of the flora of the Cascade Mountains of Oregon. On August 

 fifth in a brief trip to the summit of Llao Rock, 8148 feet altitude, 

 one of the highest elevations in the rim of Crater Lake, a Botrychium 

 was discovered, growing in considerable abundance at a single 



* • - 



point in the dry pumice gravel with which the broad summit is 

 covered. The spot was on the rounded crest of the rock about 

 fifty yards west of its highest point. As the species was believed 

 to be undescribed an ample supply of specimens was collected, and 

 from this the following description was drawn.* 



Botrychium pumicola Coville f 



Rootstock vertical, reaching a length of 8 cm. and a diameter 

 of 3 mm., with an abundance of roots a millimeter or less in diam- 

 eter ; stem, together with the segments of the frond, reaching a 

 height of 10 cm., the former about twice the height of the latter 

 and in ordinary specimens 2 to 3 or even 3.5 mm. in diameter, the 

 lower half or two-thirds thickly sheathed with the dark brown rem- 

 nants of the stems of previous years ; frond glaucous, the sterile 

 segment nearly sessile, reaching a length of 3 cm., ternate, the 

 divisions nearly sessile, the lateral ones about half or two-thirds the 

 length of the middle one, each pinnately parted into fan -shaped 

 somewhat one-sided lobes, these with crenulate margins and 

 usually two or three lobules, the lowermost lobes of the middle 

 division sometimes distinctly pinnatifid into several lobules ; fertile 

 segment in most specimens a little longer than the sterile, bipin- 

 n ate, or one or both the lowest branches sometimes so developed 

 as to indicate a tendency to ternate division ; bud with sterile seg- 

 ment erect, the axes of the lobes horizontal. 



This Botrychium, although not very closely related to any spe- 

 cies heretofore described, may best be compared with lunaria and 



* Published in Underwood, Our Native Ferns, ed. 6, 69. 1900. 

 tOn the ground of euphony the combination of letters ici,\ which in strict etymo- 

 °g'eal practice would occur in this word, was reduced to k. 



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