A FOSSIL FERN MONSTROSITY 



Arthur Hollick 



Staten Island Association of Aits and Sciences 



(with plates 31 AND 32) 



A short time ago I received from Dr. F. H. Knowlton of the 

 United States National Museum a number of specimens, appar- 

 ently representing fragments of a fossil fern, which are unlike any 

 fossil fern remains heretofore described or figured, so far as I am 

 aware. Superficially nearly every specimen presents the appear- 

 ance of a sport or monstrosity, strikingly similar to some of those 

 which have been developed in cultivated forms of the Boston 

 fern, Nephrolepis exaltata (L.) Schott. On plate 31 are figures 

 of three of the specimens, reproduced natural size, and on plate 32 

 are two photographs of portions of fronds of A^. exaltata, recently 

 selected for purposes of comparison from plants growing in the 

 conservatory of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. 



If the specimens represent a species, it was a unique and peculiar 

 one. If, on the other hand, they represent a freak or monstrosity, 

 this is equally remarkable. In any event it is apparently a fern, 

 and the probability is that it belongs in a living genus; but the 

 critical characters are too imperfectly preserved for satisfactory 

 comparison. Nevertheless, the species, or variety, or form, which- 

 ever it may be, is certainly of sufhcient interest to be figured and 

 to be described as accurately as possible, even if with no other 

 result than to invite criticism. 



The preservation of plants as fossils is and always must have 

 been a matter of fortuitous conditions. The number of specimens 

 thus preserved during any period in the earth's history must 

 represent merely a very small fraction of the vast host that lived 

 and died during the same period and left no trace behind. We 

 may, therefore, assume that a rare or local species, represented 

 by a relatively small number of individual plants or confined to a 

 limited region, would have had but little chance of being preser\'ed 



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