30 THE PLANT WOKLD 



were noticeably brittle, and many of the plants had the stipes of sev- 

 eral broken fronds standing up an inch or two above the roots. 



For a while I stood and looked at the plants, and marveled at 

 their strange appearance, realizing that they were wholly new to me ; 

 but I did not think then that they would prove to be strangers to those 

 more wise in fern lore than myself. However, after reaching my home 

 with the two plants, and consulting my fern books and Gray's botany 

 without finding a name for them, I mailed a specimen to Dr. B. L Rob- 

 inson, curator of the Harvard herbarium, who forwarded it to Mr. 

 George E. Davenport, the well known fern specialist, for further inves- 

 tigation. Later, by request, I sent to Mr. Davenport a fresh plant with 

 the soil attached. As the result of the study the little fern has re- 

 ceived, it is now regarded as a plumose variety of Asplenium eheneum, 

 and Mr. Davenport has very courteously named it in honor of its dis- 

 coverer, so that it is now called Asplenium eheneum var. Hortanae Dav- 

 enport.* 



Several times I have visited the station, on each occasion search- 

 ing in vain for fertile fronds, and leaving with the thought that perhaps 

 the broken ends of the stipes were the remnants of fruiting fronds, 

 broken so close to the rootstock that they told no story. Very late in 

 the season I made a final trip, accompanied by Mr. Horton, and to- 

 gether we carefully covered the dainty plants with fallen leaves, both 

 as a protection from cold and a security against danger, lest they 

 should be observed by others and ruthlessly exterminated. We have 

 carefully guarded the secret of the station, believing that a knowledge 

 of it would mean the comi)lete extermination of the variety. 



Brattleboro, Vermont. 



* Asplenium ebeneum Ait., var. Hortonae Davenp. — Habit and rootstock as in 

 the specific form. Fronds in two series as in normal forms ; lower series smallest, 

 rosette-like in arrangement, reclining in position, normally sterile, with closely set, 

 more or less imbricated, alternate pinnae ; larger series taller, erect, abnormally ster- 

 ile, with more distinct, alternate, sessile, sub-sessile or short-stalked, obliquely in- 

 cised or deeply pinnatifid obtuse pinnae, the oblique lobes cuneate and coarsely ser- 

 rated, the basal lobes often distinct, the upper one the largest and somewhat auricu- 

 late ; laminae 54 to 2 inches broad, pinnate nearly to the pinnatifid acute apex, lower 

 jiortion abruptly diminished, the reduced pinnae lobed, or divided, and wholly differ- 

 ent from the reduced simpler lobes of the normal forms. Stipe short, and as well as 

 the rachis, vivid chestnut, or reddish brown, glossy, terete, or obscurely furrowed 

 along the face in the living plant, shrivelling in drying and then appearing as if stri- 

 ated ; clothed at the base with a few delicate, linear-acuminate, ciliated, transparent 

 scales with a central framework of brown, and containing tvvo small vascular bundles 

 that shortly coalesce into one ; veins flabellately forked in the basal lobes, the whole 

 system forming what Luerssen terms " Nervatio Sphenopteridis," in which some of 

 the pinnae resemble sections of Asplenium Adiantum-nigruin. — Rhodora, 3: i. 1901. 



