1910] The Ottawa Naturalist. 101 



My acquaintance with this latter plant, the Matricary 

 Grape Fern, dates from 1907, when I first went from Ottawa to 

 the Algonquin Park. I was out in a hardwood bush near Head- 

 quarters with the Park Superintendent, Mr. Wood, of the "Globe" 

 staff, and the late Dr. Brodie. My companions were busy watch- 

 ing the movements of a pair of the Pileated Woodpecker (cock o' 

 the woods) ; I walked down a slope of the forest floor towards a 

 hollow filled with New York Fern when I almost set my foot on 

 some plants of this (then) new species of Botrychium. It was 

 early in August and the spores had been recently shed or in some 

 cases were just being discharged. The fern varies greatly in size 

 and in shape of frond, but it certainly deserves its title of 

 "ramose," for it tends strongly to continued subdivision. The 

 sterile frond is nearly sessile, never long-stalked; I have found 

 it always in the rich leaf mould of hardwoods, usually near the 

 foot of long gradual slopes, or in the shallow troughs and depres- 

 sions just above actual swamp level. I have taken the fern as 

 late as the first week of September; the plant was then sturdy 

 and almost erect , having fruited (say) a fortnight or three weeks 

 earlier. 



It is the largest of the three species, simplex, ramosum and 

 lanceolaUifn; I have a few specimens 9 inches high (one of 10 

 inches), but the average height of the plant is from 6 to 7 inches. 

 I shall describe two plants (A and B) in some detail. A has a 

 common stalk A\ inches high; a fruiting spike of 3 J inches set 

 on a stem of 1^ inches; this fertile spike consists of 8 pair of 

 pinnae, the lowest each an inch long, gradually reduced till at 

 the apex of the fruiting division are 2 or 3 pairs of sessile clusters 

 of sporangia; the barren frond is 2 inches long on a stalk about 

 \ of an inch; it consists of 7 pairs of nearly opposite pinnae, the 

 basal pair each f of an inch long and divided into 5 pairs of ovate 

 to narrow oblong lobes; the pinnae get gradually smaller till 

 they end at the apex of the rhachis in 2 or 3 small sessile lobes. 

 B has a common stalk of 5 J inches; a fruiting spike of 2 J inches 

 on a stalk of H inches; this spike contains 5 pair of pinnae, the 

 lowest pair each an inch or more in length, and ends at the apex 

 in several sessile clusters of sporangia; the barren frond is 2 J 

 inches long and consists of 3 pair of ovate pinnae, the basal ones 

 irregularly cut into about 5 lobes, the upper pair into 3 lobes, 

 and qX the apex a single 3 or 4 lobed pinna ; this barren frond has 

 a stalk of h inch in length. 



B. lanceolatum is a smaller plant than B. ramosum and usual- 

 ly ranges from 2 to 6 inches in height. The barren frond is not 

 at all fleshy, but foliaceous and dark-green, sessile at the very 

 apex of the common stem, or (if vou prefer) at the base of the 



