2 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



"There is nothing else, so far as I know, tliat looks much like 

 it." 



Chief of the confusion lies in the published descriptions. 

 From these you would infer that Cmnptosorus was not a walk- 

 ing but a leaping fern ; one actually given to botanical stunts. 

 On the contrary, here were spread out on the limestone ledge 

 a mass of rich green fronds, hugging the mossy sward. In- 

 stead of leaping or even walking, they were modestly creeping, 

 striking their acuminate points into the loose, scant soil, to 

 become the nucleus of another, and another, and still another 

 growth. Its specific name is a most happy one: a "root-leaf- 

 ing" plant. And equally so its generic title ; a "curved-sori" 

 plant. 



The colony lay at the base of an exposed cliff of Burling- 

 ton limestone, about twenty feet from the summit. Naturally 

 hopes were awakened of finding others along the same forma- 

 tion. But in this I was disappointed. Here and there a few 

 neighboring stragglers were espied; but that was all. And 

 subsequent search along the same bluff for miles above and be- 

 low, as well as along ravines and exposures in the interior, 

 has likewise been in vain. Tracy in his "Flora of Missouri" 

 says that this species is "common everywhere." Such wild 

 conjecture leaves the conviction that there remains much to 

 done in plant life study in the Northeast portion of this State. 



This colony covered about three by four feet of area, with 

 an almost solid surface of fronds. Generally the sori are such 

 as are figured in the manuals. But they also appear in large 

 round nodes similar to those of Dryopteris or Woodsia, 

 heavily coated with a red-brown fuzz. Gray mentions some 

 thing corresponding with this found at Mt. Joy, Penn. Pos- 

 sibly this is the C. rhisophillus intermedins, described as a new 

 species in the Botanical Gazette (VIII :200. 1883), discovered 

 in Iowa. The books further tell us of a species indigenous to 

 Northern Asia, and one among the Brazilian forests. What 



