216 BENEDICT: NEW VARIETIES OF NEPHROLEPIS 
able interest, especially with respect to the origin of the variety 
bostoniensis. Between 1890 and 1895 florists discovered that 
there were in cultivation under the name of sword fern two dis- 
tinct forms, the one as above described, the other (see PLATE 
13, FIG. 2) laxer, with broader leaves, upon which the sori and 
sporangia were small and abortive. The second form was also 
more rapid in growth. 
There are two versions of the origin and discovery of this 
second form which afterward came to be known as the ‘‘ Boston 
fern,” or ‘Boston sword fern.” According to one version, the 
variety was first discovered among a lot of two hundred small 
plants shipped as plain sword fern by the Robert Craig Company, 
of Philadelphia, to F. C. Becker, of Cambridge, Massachusetts. 
It is certain that the latter florist was among the first to recognize 
the importance of the second form which he at first identified 
as N. davallioides. Under this name a considerable number of 
plants were sold. This identification was later challenged by 
G. W. Oliver, of Washington, who finally convinced Becker after 
a considerable exchange of opinion in the Florists’ Exchange* 
that the fern in question was at least not N. davallioides, or, as it 
should be called, N. biserrata. The dispute ended according 
to the citations referred to by September 12, 1896. Becker 
stated that the plant had been submitted to a fern expert 
by the Nomenclature Commission of the Society of American 
Florists, and his advertisement was changed so that the fern was 
listed henceforth as N. exaltata bostoniensis. 
The other version has recently received a convincing state- 
ment in the Florists’ Exchange} by F. W. Fletcher, of Auburndale, 
Massachusetts. According to this version, the Boston fern, when 
attention was first directed to it, was in the hands of several 
growers, particularly about Boston. Many of these growers 
were of the opinion that they were the discoverers of it, but there 
seemed to be no way of determining its real origin. At any rate 
it was referred to the Nomenclature Commission of the Society 
of American Florists as stated above, and by them submitted 
first to Kew, and later to G. W. Davenport. The latter is said 
*8: 23; 57: 92: 122; 814; 858. 1806. 
1 40: 1134, 1135. 20N IQI5. 
