104 
occur on the exposed headlands of the littoral and under similar 
conditions in the Galapagos Archipelago, such as species. of 
Oxalis, Euphorbia, Tribulus, and Luffa. 1 was fortunate in 
spending an entire rainy season on the coast of Ecuador, but my 
progress was somewhat hampered by the unexpectedly high 
precipitation in an ‘‘off year.’ Approximately six inches of 
rainfall was anticipated along the Ecuadorian coast at Salinas 
during the period from January to the end of April, the extent 
of my stay. There was, however, a deluge of twenty inches, 
which increased inland. Such an unprecedented precipitation 
occurred southward along the western flank of the Andes, even 
as far as Lima, Peru, and made travel almost impossible during 
extended periods. As a consequence, I was unable to get into 
the low mountains along the Ecuadorian coast; now that means 
of access are known I hope to complete such exploration in a 
succeeding year. The material which I collected shows that 
there is a well-marked province of plant geography comprising 
the northern coast of Peru, the southwestern coast of Ecuador, 
and the Galapagos Islands. An extended account of exploration 
and a catalogue of the plants with their Galapagos connections 
will be published during the coming year. 
GENETICS 
Variation in Nephrolepis 
Problems in the variation of certain native fern species 
By RaLtru C. BENEDICT 
The collection of Nephrolepis variants has been maintained 
during 1941 in the public and experimental greenhouses. This 
material offers a considerable number of research problems in 
addition to those so far reported. From time to time, requests 
from other institutions for representative sets of these variations 
and species are filled. 
Beginning about forty years ago, when essential agreement 
had been reached regarding the delimitation of our native hardy 
