1910] The Ottawa Naturalist. 91 



found at 3 or 4 stations on the dry brittle rock; generally shaded, 

 but not densely; its usual companions, the Pol3^pody, the Beech 

 Fern and the Rusty Woodsia. It grows in large compact tufts, 

 a dozen or more green fronds projecting from a mass of brown 

 shrivelled fronds of the previous season. The frond is in outline 

 oblong lanceolate, its pinnae a narrow oblong, consisting of 

 narrow oblong pinnules, mostly opposite, and serrate at the tip 

 and along the margin more remote from the rhachis; the base 

 of the tuft is densely chaffy with large flakes of light-brown scales, 

 which extend up the stipe to about half-way up the rhachis. 

 The upper side of the frond is dark green, the under side is almost 

 covered with the large circular indusiums, silvery-grey in appear- 

 ance; the stipe and the frond, when the plant is fresh, are sticky 

 and clammily moist with the resinous glands. The fern is so rich 

 on the under side with this fragrant resin that it adheres tightly 

 to the sheet of blotting paper in the press. The largest fronds on 

 a well-grown plant are about 11 inches from base to tip, 3 inches 

 of this being stipe; the extreme width is about 2 inches. 



From the Algonquin Park I made a trip by rail to Port 

 Sydney on the north branch of the Muskoka River. The chief 

 object of this trip was to see the Virginia Chain Fern which had 

 been found growing in abundance along one margin of a mud lake. 

 Its companion was a fringed orchid I had never seen before, 

 Ha ben aria hlepharigloUis . 



We had only two days' stay in Port Sydney before my 

 companion had to go east on his return journey to Liverpool, 

 and the nicely calculated less or more of time for the trip proved 

 almost our undoing. We left the Park Station at 6 a.m. and were 

 met, as pre-arranged, shortly before noon by a wagon; this 

 conveyed us to a bush from waiich we were to proceed on foot 

 with our host and guide to where the Virginia Chain Fern grew. 

 On the next day we were to go in a different direction to a wood 

 where the Lance-leaved Grape-fern was to be seen. 



Unfortunately our host and guide, a local naturalist with a 

 reputation for never having lost his way in the bush, lost his way 

 and his reputation both that first afternoon. The wagon-track 

 ended suddenly at the edge of a marsh shortly above a beaver 

 dam. Its sudden disappearance was due to the activitv of some 

 beavers. The marsh was drained down its centre by a small 

 creek; round the edges of the marsh grew many poplars; covet- 

 ing these for food the heavers had dammed the creek at its exit 

 from the marsh, converting about half a mile of beaver-meadow 

 into a standing lake. At first we thought of crossing this obstacle 

 by the dam, but our guide's son found this narrow pass jealously 

 guarded by a colony of " Yellow- Jackets " and we decided to 

 keep to the w'agon-track above; this led across the swamp by 



