194 Underwood : American ferns 



With the original sheet of Chapman in the Columbia herbarium 

 is a faded photograph marked " Asplenia m anchorita, Scott's Well, 

 near Ocala, Florida/' and also " Rec'd from Miss Murray, Sept. 7, 

 1855." With this is a letter to Dr. Torrey from Amelia M. Mur- 

 ray, mentioning the collection of the fern at the above-named 

 place. This interesting sink-hole later known as Scott's Spring, 

 where the plant was evidently first collected, w r as visited in 1891 by 

 the writer, who found the fern still growing there. It will be seen 

 from the localities given that the plant ranges the entire length of 

 the state. The name anchorita has been given as a synonym in 

 the first edition of Chapman's Flora (page 593) and the highly 

 appropriate name verecundum taken up from Chapman's herbarium 

 was used as a nomen nudum in Fournier Mex. PI. Ill, in 1872. 

 The fern is at once the most modest and the most graceful of our 

 species of Aspleuium. 



Asplenium Curtissii sp. nov. 



Rootstock short, erect or inclined ; leaves 30-50 cm. long, 

 bipinnate to tripinnatifid, lanceolate or lanceolate-ovate, 5-10 cm. 

 wide, broadest a little above the base, the basal pinnae nearly as 

 long as those above, borne on grayish-brown stalks 12-14 cm. 

 long ; pinnae lanceolate, in larger plants bipinnattfid, in smaller 

 plants pinnate with 2-4-toothed or lobed closely-set pinnules ; 

 segments acute or rarely obtusish, pointed, decurrent on the rachi- 

 ses with a rather broad wing ; veins single, or forked in the seg- 

 ments which are toothed, each tooth with a separate excurrent 

 vein ; sori prominent ; indusia broad. 



Range : Central Florida ; specimens have been examined as 

 follows : 



Citrus County : Lake Tsala Apopka, Curtiss 3728 (type). 

 Marion County: near Ocala, 1879, J 883, Miss Reynolds. Indian 

 Spring, 4miles S. E. of Ocala, 1891, Underwood 18 13. Belleview, 

 1 891, Underwood 1875. Hernando County: Istachatta, 1891, 



Underwood fpp7, 2001, 2001a; 1897, Curtiss 5683. 



The combined herbaria at the New York Botanical Garden 

 contain seven sheets of Curtiss 3728, which represents the first 

 plants collected and distributed. Two of these have a small 

 plant of the previous species included on the same sheet, but the 

 others are straight examples of the present species. We take 

 pleasure in dedicating this very distinct species to Mr. Allen H. 



