103 The Ottawa Naturalist. [Dec. 



ment in the electric trolley car, and thus stole a march of over 

 an hour on fleet-foot Time. 



From the Monument I walked along a wooded lane on the 

 edge of the Heights till I reached a fine rich open wood, char- 

 acteristic of the peninsula in the number of chestnut trees among 

 its larger timber, — not Aescnlus, the Horse Chestnut, but 

 Castanea, what in England we term the Spanish Chestnut — 

 characteristic, too, in its rich clumps of Beard Tongue and Oak- 

 leaved Gerardia, both blooming luxuriantly at this latter end 

 of July. The wood was much dryer than our woods further 

 east, and quite open — compact of sunny glades rather than shady 

 groves. Here, to my great delight, I found five or six colonies 

 of a fern till then new to me, the Broad-leaved Beech fern. The 

 living frond is quite distinct in appearance, especially when still 

 young, -from that of the Narrow-leaved ; exactly where the differ- 

 ence lies is a little diflncult to say ; sometimes the two are in shape 

 and proportions identical, but as a rule in the Broad-leaved 

 species, the frond is light yellow-green, and smoother, less hirsute. 

 In writing of it five years ago, I was in error when I said it was 

 common near Owen Sound. The Narrow-leaved species is com- 

 mon near Barrie, but the true home of the Broad-leaved is further 

 south, and in south-western Ontario, Welland, Niagara and other 

 districts, it seems to take the place of the Narrow-leaved form. 

 It is recorded from woods near Campbellford, and evidently 

 prefers limestone. In the Algonquin Park, where Huronian and 

 Laurentian granite abound, the Narrow-leaved Beech-fern luxur- 

 iates in every moist woodland hollow, and even subsists in 

 dwarfed form on bare crags and the sides of railway cuttings. 



The close of July found me established in lodgings at Owen 

 Sotmd, with a fern press and piles of blotting paper. I had long 

 wanted to visit this famous fern-centre, but till now had never 

 realized my wishes. It is a beautiful neighbourhood, and (to 

 a fern lover) unique in the Province for some of its plants. The 

 city lies in a great hollow delta, flanked on either side by high 

 limestone cliffs that start from Sydenham Falls, a few miles back 

 of the town, and rapidly diverge in the direction of the Sound. 

 The ferns are almost entirely those peculiar to limestone, but 

 within these limitations it is one of the richest localities in North 

 America. 



I got there at 1 p.m., and as soon as I Jiad found my quar- 

 ters and lunched, I hurried out to explore. Making my way 

 west to the nearest flank of limestone, I followed a steep road to 

 the top of the cliff, and looked about. South of me ran another 

 diverging cliff, with signs of an active lime and cement quarry 

 not far off. Making a slight detour round this to a more seques- 

 tered part of the cliff, I got my first surprise. In a stony, half- 



