74 DAVENPORT ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 



certainty what form of Marsilia was really collected, or in what locality 

 it was found. A review of the few instances in which specimens of 

 Marsilia have been collected in this region will, however, afford some 

 slight assistance. A Marsilia appears to be comparatively abundant in 

 Dakota. It was first found in 1839 by Geyer, of Nicollet's Expedition, 

 in "dry swamps in the prairies near Devil's Lake," Northern Dakota. 

 Torrey, in the report of this expedition, p. 166, determined it to be M. 

 vesiita, and specimens are in both the Torrey and Chapman herbaria 

 at Columbia College, New York City. A. Braun, however, referred it 

 to M. nmcronata in an account in Monatsberichte der Akademie, Berlin, 

 1863, p. 423, and adhered to the same opinion in a fuller account in 

 the same publication of 1870. Sterile specimens of what may be the 

 same species were gathered by Mr. J. M. Holzinger in July, 1883, near 

 Pierre, in Central Dakota, in a ditch by the railway track on the prairie. 

 I'he specimens are now in my possession. Michaux collected a sterile 

 specimen in Illinois, still in the Michaux herbarium, which A. Braun 

 doubtfully refers to M. mucronata (1. c, 1870), but it has not been de- 

 tected since. These are all the specimens known to the writer to have 

 been collected nearer us than Arkansas. We may conclude that there 

 is little doubt that either M. vestita or M. mucronata, or it may be both, 

 will finally be found in Iowa. The two are much ahke, and Braun 

 seems to have arrived at the opinion that they can scarcely be specifi- 

 cally distinct, a conclusion adopted by Watson in the Botany of Cali- 

 fornia, p. 351, where the latter is made a form of M. vestita. Marsilia 

 has slender, creeping stems, leaves closely resembling those of white 

 clover, but with four leaflets instead of three, fruit the shape of a bean, 

 and nearly half the size of one, and commonly grows in shallow water 

 or mud. As with Isoetes, so with Marsilia, it has probably been over- 

 looked; and the main reason for inserting M. vestita in the present list 

 without accompanying specimens, which is contrary to the established 

 rule, is to bring the matter to the attention of local collectors. 



Bofrychium ternatum, Swartz (No. 984), was found by the writer in 

 August of 1 88 1. Only a single plant was discovered, which grew in 

 an open pasture. The specimen was unfortunately dropped and lost 

 before reaching home. Judging from memory of the hasty examination 

 made when in hand, it belonged to sub-variety intermedium of Eaton. 

 The plant was nearly a foot high, and had a close resemblance to the 

 figure given in Eaton's Ferns of North America, Vol. I., PI. XXa, of a 

 specimen of this variety from Shelbourne, N. H. It is undoubtedly 

 rare in Iowa. The only other instance of its having been found in the 



