The American Botanist 



VOL. XV JOLIET, ILL., FEBRUARY, 1909 No. 1 



i!ff thou art worn and hard beset LIBRARY 



With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget, NEW YOR 



%Sf thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep BOTANICA 



^hy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep CLARDEN. 

 Go to the woods and hills. ^/Vo tears 

 S)im the sweet look that -Mature wears. 



— Longfellow. 



A COLONY OF CAMPTOSORUS. 



By Rev. John Davis. 



AT the close of a fierce mid-summer day, after a weary 

 tramp along the Mississippi bluffs, an eager quest of more 

 than two year's standing was suddenly and happily realized. 

 True, the authorities had said it was by no means an uncom- 

 mon plant, even if of unequal distribution. Only a few years 

 previous the accomplished editor of The American Botanist 

 had written; "Fortunately this fern (C. rhi^ophyllus) is not 

 so rare as the books would have it. Go to the nearest deep, 

 shady woodland ; search the moist, but not wet rocks, and 

 when you find a plant with dark-green leaves, and tapering 

 gradually to a slender apex, rejoice." 



Admirable advice. There is no trouble about reaching 

 the nearest woodland; none whatever over the rejoicing. But 

 the finding the "plant with the dark green leaves." There lies 

 the rub. Anyway it had escaped my vigilance all this while; 

 and even as it lay before me, resembled rather some common 

 lichen of the rocks to the casual eye, than a coy and rare fern. 

 And all this in the face of the same high authority, who adds : 



