﻿Vol. 25 



No. 12 



BULLETIN 



OF THE 



TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB 



DECEMBER 1898 



Revision of the Bermuda Ferns. 



By Benjamin D. Gilbert 



J 



Lefroy, whose list of Bermuda plants was published by The Smith- 

 sonian Institute in its Bulletin No. 25, in 1884; and the botanical 

 volume of The Challenger Expedition, published by the British 

 government in 1885, the material for which was collected between 

 1873 and 1877, and was determined by Mr. W. B. Hemsley. 

 Another small volume, entitled "Plants of the Bermudas," by Os- 

 wald A. Reade, was also published at Hamilton, Bermuda, in 1885. 

 It is very imperfect in its list of Filices, but is entitled to recogni- 

 tion on account of one species given in it, which neither of the 



other works mentions. 



It should be remembered that the Bermudas are not tropical 

 islands and that the fern flora is small in comparison with that of 

 the West Indies. For instance, the ferns comprise more than one 

 fifth of the flowering plants and vascular cryptogams growing in 

 Jamaica, while in Bermuda they form only about one fourteenth 

 part of the whole number. There is neither sufficient moisture 

 nor sufficient heat to promote their growth. At the same time 

 there are some very good and desirable species. Only one fern, 

 however, is generally distributed throughout the islands : all the 

 others being confined principally to two kinds of localities having 

 distinct characteristics of their own. These localities are what 

 are known, first, as "the marshes," and second, as "the caves." 



The marshes are hardly what we would call swamps. They are 

 large, level plats at the foot of hills or between them, where some 



[Issued 16 December.] ( 593 ) 



