SOME RARE VERMONT FERNS. 



VERMONT is a good field for the fern enthusiast, for we have a 

 number of rare ones and are still finding more. Woodsia gla- 

 bella^ the plant that started C. S. Pringle in his botanical 

 wanderings, and was found by him in a number of mountains 

 in northern Vermont, has also been discovered by F. A. Balch in 

 Queeche Gulf, in central eastern Vermont, at an altitude of not over 

 six hundred feet. This locality must be something similar to the Lit- 

 tle Falls, N. Y., situation, where it was first found by Dr. Vasey. 



One of the rarest ferns in the east, Asplenhun trichoniancs mcisntn, 

 has been found in Norwich by Prof. H. G. Jessup. Dryopteris fra- 

 grans v;a.?> found by the writer in Underhill Notch in 1894; but the 

 greatest surprise he has had in the fern line was the discovery, in 

 company with G. H. Ross, in July, 1898, of this fern in Hubbardton, 

 in the Taconic range of mountains, at an elevation of not over 1200 

 feet. The Taconic range is the range in Vermont west of the Green 

 Mountains, the particular locality, in fact, in which southern and 

 western plants extend much farther north and east — just the last place 

 to expect Arctic or boreal plants. 



In August last Ross brought in a Rutland specimen of Asplenium 

 ebcnoides. This fern has been found but once before, I believe, in 

 New England (in Connecticut), many years ago. In the Rutland lo- 

 cality^ — there was but one plant with the usual accompaniment of 

 Asplenium platyneuron and Camptosorus rhi::opJiyllus. 



Last year was a particularly favorable year for rock ferns. The 

 writer found more of that extremely rare fern, Woodsia alpina, in 

 Smuggler's Notch, Mt. Mansfield, than he had ever seen before, 

 simply because it had a chance for growth in dry places, its best loca- 

 tion. In North Pownal he found Pellaa atropurpurca^ twenty inches 

 high, and lots of Asplenium Ruta-niuraria. These last two are quite 

 common in western Vermont, although local. In the rock-cut of the 

 Rutland railroad, in Mt. Holley, he saw this year quantities of Pellcca 

 Stelleri, four or five inches high. 



Vermont has had one station for Woodwardia Virginica since Dr. 

 J. W. Robbins found it at Colchester Pond in 1829. This year it has 

 been found at a pond in Randolph, in eastern Vermont. Miss M. 

 Slosson and the writer have found stations for Dryopteris cristatax 

 inarginalis, and if we can find Dryopteris sinmlata we shall be about 

 satisfied. As it is, we have forty-seven species and varieties of ferns 

 in the State, as many as the other five New England states together. 

 To this might be added twelve more for Botrychium and Ophioglos- 

 sum. — W. W. Eggleston in Fern Bulletin for January. 



