602 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



finally made to grow the latter in leaf -mould, mixed with lime, rubble 

 and sand, in the hollow of sheltered rotten tree-stumps, the plants suc- 

 ceeded beyond all expectation. Thus var. cornvbiense and its crested 

 form multifido-elegantissimum, also var. ramosum and var. pidcherrimum, 

 are now a great success. 



New European Fern.* — Frere Sennen gives an account of a fern, 

 collected at the foot of the Cantabrian mountains, near Santander in the 

 north of Spain, which is new to the European flora. Originally distri- 

 buted as Polypodiam Eliasii Sen. & Pau., it is shown by H. Christ to 

 be in fact Dryopteris africana (Desv.) C. Chr., formerly known as Gymno- 

 gramme Totta Schlecht., a species with a distribution extending from 

 West Africa to Japan, long known in Madeira and even in the Azores, 

 and a member of the group of Atlantic ferns — Davallia canariensis, 

 AspJenium hemionitis, Woodwardia radvans. It belongs to the Lepto- 

 yramme section of Dryopteris. Frere Elias found it in a sheltered spot 

 in a wood near the sea. 



New North American Ferns.t — L. S. Hopkins publishes descrip- 

 tions and figures of two new varieties of common North American ferns. 

 One of them is Adiantum pedatum var. laciniatum, in which some of the 

 normal pinnules are replaced by linear branching pinnules which are 

 partly fertile and partly sterile at their tips. And the other is Cystopteris 

 J ray il is var. cristata, in which the apices of the frond and pinnae are 

 forked, and acute or obtuse. 



North American Ferns.} — Pi. Dodge recently delivered an address 

 to the American Fern Society on the subject of Variation in Botrychium 

 ramosum (better known as B. matricariifolium). By keeping the 

 plants under observation in their natural habitats, by noting the effect 

 of drought and winter, of soil, of prevailing winds, etc., he is led to the 

 conclusion that B. ramosum is a polymorphic species, of which B. tene- 

 brosum, B. simplex, and B. lanceolatum are but forms, due to chemical 

 and biological laws not yet understood. 



W. N. Clute § gives a simple account of the Philippine Doryopteris 

 ludens for comparison with the American D. pedata, figured by him two 

 years previously. He also |] describes and figures three forms of Poly- 

 podium vulyare. And he offers some suggestions as to the employment 

 of regularized descriptive names for garden forms, e.g. furcatum, 

 digitatum, polydactylum, etc., for apical cresting ; ramosum, ramulosissi- 

 mum, etc., for lateral cresting. Under the head of Pteridographia,^" he 

 has put together notes on forms of Lycopodium clavatum, fertile spikes 

 in Botrychium, an aberrant Osmunda, stolons of Nephrolepis, forms of 

 Botrychium obliquum. 



A. Prescott ** gives an account of some juvenile ferns, the identifica- 

 tion of which has perplexed her. 



* Bull. Acad. Internat. Geogr. Bot., xix. (1910) pp. 95-6. 

 t Ohio Nat., x. (1910) pp. 179-81. 



% Pern I Bulletin, xviii. (1910) pp. 33-43. § Tom. cit., pp. 43-5 (pi.). 



|i Tom. cit., pp. 47-51. f Tom. cit., pp. 51-5. 



** Tom. cit., pp. 45-7. 



