Qk M. Chapman 



Vol. 30, pp. 179-184 December 1, 1917 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



NOTES ON WESTERN SPECIES OF PELLAEA.* 



BY WILLIAM R. MAXON. 



The following notes relate chiefly to the taxonomy of the 

 southwestern ferns for many years loosely associated under the 

 name Pellaea Wrightiana Hook., to which Christensent has 

 recently assigned the name Pellaea mucronata D. C. Eaton, in 

 error. It is necessary to apply the name mucronata to a quite 

 different plant, namely the California species long passing as 

 P. ornithopus Hook., and to recognize three distinct species in 

 the Pellaea Wrightiana of recent writers. 



The name mucronata, as applied to any species of the genus 

 Pellaea, dates from 1856, with the publication of Allosorus mu- 

 cronatus D. C. Eaton, based wholly on small specimens collected 

 'in the hills near the bay of San Francisco, California," by 

 Major A. B. Eaton. This material, recently examined, clearly 

 bears out Eaton's later statement! that his "original Allosorus 

 mucronatus was founded on small specimens of P. ornithopus, of 

 Hooker" (1858). In the Botany of the Mexican Boundary 

 Survey (1859), however, Eaton had transferred A. mucronatus 

 to Pellaea, making Pellaea mucronata include (in addition to P. 

 ornithopus Hook.) the two southwestern forms described in 1858 

 as Pellaea Wrightiana Hook, and P. longimucronata Hook. 

 Recognizing subsequently the error of associating the distinc- 

 tively Calif ornian plant with the new southwestern plants, and 

 objecting (loc. cit.) to Baker's use of the name mucronata for the 

 latter, Eaton yet failed to take up the name mucronata for the 

 Californian plant, and on the contrary wrote Allosorus mucro- 



* Published with the permission of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. 



+ Ind. Fil. 481. 1906. 



I Ferns N. Amer. 2 : 8. 1880. 



44— Pkoc. Biol. Soc. Wash., Vol. 30. 1917. (179) 



