]9!0] The Ottawa Naturalist. 93 



along each side of the pinna's midrib and similarly up each pin- 

 nule. The fronds are thrown up at intervals from long under- 

 ground root stocks which occasionally aitain a length of 9 or 10 

 feet. These long loose lines of ferns, like regiments in extended 

 order, looking all in one direction, focussed on some unseen point 

 of control, were standing thus to attention deep in the sphagnum 

 moss of their subterranean root-stocks, running horizontally 

 and branching down below, still lay in the sam.e everlasting bed 

 of sphagnum. 



When I had first seen them, about the 5th of July, they were 

 just beginning to rear their forms to stately height, the tips of 

 the frond and the pinnae .still partly furled, the w^hole foliage of 

 a lush-coppery sofiness. Now, in the middle of August, they 

 were mature, standing stiffly on stout woody reddish-brown 

 stipes, the fronds thick and coriaceous. I said they were as large 

 as an average 'Cinnamon Fern. With a view^ to the size of my 

 press and the usual botanical mount, I chose the smaller speci- 

 mens; thev are from 20 to 30 inches long; but our gtiide insisted 

 on my taking one frond, the largest he could see: it measures 52 

 inches, 21 of stipe and 31 of rhachis; the length of the longest 

 pinnae is 6^ inches, but as they point upward at an angle follow- 

 ing the line of growth of the stein, the greatest width of the stem 

 is 1 1 inches or thereabouts. 



I have now brought my account of Ontario Ferns so far as 

 thev have come within my limited experience, down to the last 

 familv, that of the Ophioglossaceae. with its two genera of the 

 Grape Fern (Botrychium) and the Adder's TongueiOphioglossum). 



EXCURSIONS. 



Beaver Meadow, HuU, May 14, 1910. About thirty 

 members of the Club, including a representative number of 

 students from the Normal School, were in attendance, and 

 fairly good collections were made in the various branches. 



The party met about 5 o'clock, and under the direction of 

 the President, Messrs. McNeill, Brown, Wilson, Kingston and 

 Groh spoke briefly on wdiat they had observed. 



The geological branch visited the quarries on both sides of 

 Beaver Meadow on the east several fossils were noted principal- 

 ly corals and brachiopods, and on the west several crinoid stems, 

 one over a foot long. Both these quarries are in the Trenton 

 limestone. The one on the west side is not far from the fault 

 which is the boundary of the adjacent w^edge-shaped area of 

 Black River limestone. Numerous pot holes and other evidences 

 of the action of running water were seen. The relative position 



I 



