Vol. 34, pp. 111-114 June 30, 1921 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



A NEGLECTED FERN PAPER. 

 BY WILLIAM R. MAXON. 



While preparing a brief account of the ferns and fern allies 

 of the District of Columbia for publication two or three years 

 ago the writer had his attention called by Mr. C. A. Weatherby 

 to the fact that the common gray polypody or resurrection 

 fern of the southern United States and tropical America long 

 known as Poly podium incanum Swartz, but more recently as 

 P. polypodioides (L.) Hitchc, ought properly to be known as 

 P. polypodioides (L.) Watt, Watt having been the first to trans- 

 fer to Polypodium the Linnaean species Acrostichum polypodi- 

 oides in a little known paper published long ago. The reference 

 to the article in question was supplied subsequently by Miss 

 Mary A. Day, Librarian of the Gray Herbarium. Besides the 

 instance just mentioned there are in this paper several other 

 transferred names which appear to have been completely over- 

 looked by fern writers, including Christensen in the Index 

 FiUcum. It seems worth while to place these omissions on 

 record. 



The paper under discussion was pubHshed in the Canadian 

 Naturalist, series II, vol. 13, pp. 157-160, 1867, under the title, 

 "Review. Ferns: British and Foreign; by John Smith, A. L. 

 S. " The review proper (pp. 157, 158), signed " W., " is followed 

 by a fern Hst of about two and one-half pages of fine print in 

 double column, with the following prefatory remark by Watt: 

 "We append a catalogue of northern North American ferns, 

 giving our views of the nomenclature and classification of this 

 order; it includes all the species mentioned by Michaux and by 

 Dr. Gray, and most of those mentioned by Pursh and by 



1 Published by permission of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. 



21— Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., Vol. 34, 1921. (Ill) 



