BENEDICT: NEW VARIETIES OF NEPHROLEPIS 215 
s 
B. ORIGIN AND DESCRIPTION OF THE VARIETIES IN NEPHROLEPIS 
1.. N. exaltata and N. exaltata bostoniensis 
Nephrolepis exaltata, or rather its variety bostoniensis, has 
been named as the form from which the variations under con- 
sideration have all originated. As already noted, a number of 
other species in the genus have also given rise under horticultural 
conditions to variations similar to those of N. exaltata, but none 
of the other species has received as extensive cultivation, and 
there has, therefore, been less opportunity for variation. It may be 
noted here that all the wild species forms of Nephrolepis are once- 
pinnate. Thisis significant in consideration of the fact that among 
the varieties of N. exaltata bostoniensis are two-, three-, four-, and 
even five-pinnate forms. So far as I have been able to discover, 
only two partial aberrations from the once-pinnate type have been 
found wild; one, N. biserrata (‘‘ davallioides”) furcans, with dichot- 
omously divided pinnae, the so-called “‘fish-tail” form of the 
florists (see PLATE 12, FIG. 3, for illustration of this type of varia- 
tion in the variety falcata); and the other, the anomalous form 
known as JN, Duffii from New Zealand, referred by Goebel to NV. 
cordifolia as a variety. 
NV. exaltata is a species of common ond general occurrence in 
tropical America, and of somewhat scattered distribution in the 
Old World tropics. As I have it from Porto Rico, it appears as a 
plant with narrow erect leaves with sharply acute pinnae — 
13, FIG. 1), well deserving its common name of ° ‘sword fern.’’ 
The sori are well developed and large with many fully formed 
sporangia. Presumably this form has been in cultivation in 
America for over fifty years, although the source and exact char- 
acter of the original introduction are uncertain. It seems to have 
been first introduced into cultivation in 1793, at Kew, and came 
from Jamaica. The date of its American introduction I have not 
yet been able to discover, although this is a matter of consider- 
“ sword fern,” 
* There isa great deal of confusion in the trade use ee the names 
Boston fern,” and Nephrolepis exaltata. In Florida, Dr. J. K. Small tells me hed 
wild species, N. exaltata, is called ‘‘ Boston fern,” and the term = fern” is 
applied to the other Florida species, N. biserrata, a very diff -_ 
florists, at least, list as N. exaltata, the dissimilar N. cordifelie, 8 further element of 
Confusion, 
