THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 71 



tures, the beech ferns, Phegopteris polypodiodes and dryopteris 

 and Aspidium spinutosmn and cristatum, — one species of the 

 latter with a forked frond. 



It would take too much space to enumerate half the in- 

 teresting things I noticed particularly in the Acadian flora, but 

 I must not omit to mention a potted plant called the "Grand 

 Pre fern," I was shown just as I was about to return to Bos- 

 ton. This specimen they told me, came from a greenhouse, but 

 I was assured by several persons that the same fern grows wild 

 about ten miles from Grand Pre in the Gaspereaux Valley. 

 The fern resembles Adiantum capillus-veneris, but varies much 

 from this species as I had seen it growing in greenhouses and 

 in the tropics. The fronds are longer, narrower, and more 

 tapering; the rachis is larger and more sweeping; and the pin- 

 nules are smaller and thinner in texture ; the whole plant sug- 

 gesting a fern less robust and more graceful than Capillus- 

 veneris. 



I very much doubt that a fern of known tropical habitat 

 could be found, even in the most sheltered valleys, so far north 

 as Nova Scotia. I know that in "Our ferns in their Haunts" it 

 is reported as occuring in the Black Hills of South Dakota, but 

 the temperature of this locality is warmed by hot springs. Also 

 there is doubtful authority for its growing in New York and 

 Pennsylvania. 



Is it possible that a form of the A. capillus-veneris grows 

 in the Gaspereaux Valley, as several witnesses testify? Or is 

 the "Grand Pre fern" our common A. pedatuni, and have my 

 informants, not being particularly skilled in feni knowledge, 

 confused the two forms? My curiosity about this fern was so 

 great that, had circumstances permitted, I would have con- 

 tinued my journey into the Gaspereaux Valley, and searched 

 for the wonderful Grand Pre fern until I had found it and 

 established its identity beyond question. 



Maiden, Mass. 



