180 THE PI.ANT WORLD 



Ferns of Smugglers' and Nebraska 



Notches. 



By Carrie E. Straw. 



W. W. Eggleston, of the Vermont Botanical Club, wrote an article 

 for volume 20 of the Botanical Gazette, which was afterwards published 

 in pamphlet form, entitled " The Flora of Mt. Mansfield." It is a very 

 interesting article and contains a most fascinating list of the rare plants 

 to be found on the two peaks of Mt. Mansfield and in Smugglers' Notch 

 at the base of the mountain. 



The casual tourist may find many of the rare plants of the mountain, 

 since they grow on the rocks and in the sphagnum bogs all along the 

 crest of the mountain from the nose to the chin, but one must climb 

 perhaps a thousand feet in the Notch to reach the alpine gardens. 

 Before beginning the ascent we may find in the rich soil in the base of 

 the Notch Aspidium aculeatum Brautiii (Braun's holly fern). It formerly 

 grew here in great abundance, but a florist from the southern part of the 

 State, we are told, has been here several years and has carried away 

 barrels of fern roots for sale, and this fern seems to have suffered much 

 from his ravages. It is a beautiful fern, with chaffy stalks and with 

 fronds from one to two or more feet long. It was first discovered in 

 the United States by Frederick Pursh in 1807, in this Notch. It is found 

 in the Catskills, Adirondacks, in northern Maine, in Michigan, and by 

 mountain brooks in northern New England. 



On shaded banks grows the graceful Cystoperis, or bladder fern, which 

 shares with the maidenhair the honor of being first to be sent to the Old 

 World by botanical explorers. Aspidium acrostichoides, the Christmas 

 fern, is common here, and one may sometimes find its variety incisum. 



Aspidium spimdosum, grows here, and some of its varieties ; also A. 

 marginale and others of the commoner sorts. In the summer of 1901 there 

 was a quantity of A. Goldieana growing here, but we could not find a 

 plant of it in 1902, and think that must have gone with the aculeatum 

 Braunii. 



It is an experience long to be remembered to climb to the cliffs, there 

 to find under dripping, overhanging rocks some of the treasures of the 

 botanical world. It is not so great an undertaking as it might seem, 

 even for ladies. The wonderful views to be obtained of mountain 

 fastness and distant valley repay one for the toil, while a botanist is 

 many times repaid by a glimpse of one of the rarest of ferns in its own 

 natural setting. Some of the rare plants which grow here are the 

 saxifrages i^Saxi/raga aizoides, Aizoon, and oppositi/olia^ , while on the 



