Description of a New Species of Botrychium. 103 
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ee, 
BOTANY. 
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etnies 
Arr. 1V.—Description of a New Species of Botrychium; with 
a. drawing ; by the Rev. Epwarp Hircucock, A. M. 
of Conway, Mass. 
Tus species grows, not very abundantly, in Conway, 
Massachusetts. It was first noticed, two years since, and 
with some doubt, referred to Botrychium lunaria of Swartz 
and Wildenow. But upon a suggestion of Dr. Torrey that 
it might be a new species, I have several times re-exam- 
ined it during the two past summers, and feel so confident 
that itis specifically distinct from any described Botrychi- 
um, that I take the liberty to propose for it the name B. 
simplex. iy eter 
Specific Character. 
Botrychium simplex : Frond simple, 3 lobed, or 3 cleft; 
segments unequal; spike sub-compound, interrupted, uni- 
lateral, bearing sessile! capsules, in the last part of June, 
of the size of a mustardseed. In dry hilly pastures. 
Frond solitary, from a torn membraneous sheath, erect, 
two to four inches high, glabrous, pale green, consisting of 
a small spatulate feat” an inch Jong, and one third of an inch 
broad, usually divided into three—rarely four—unequal, 
somewhat rounded segments, with their margins a little 
notched. From the base of the leaf, about an inch from 
the ground, springs a stalk,twice or thrice the length of the 
leaf, bearing a sub-compound, unilateral, interrupted spike 
of capsules, sub-two rowed. Root sending forth stout 
simple fibres. 
his species is closely allied to B. lunaria of Europe : 
but it differs in having a simple, instead of a pinnate feat 
“with six or seven pairs of obliquely imbricated, fan-shaped, 
entire, or notched leafets.”” (Smith in Rees’ Cyc.) And 
this difference exists in all the specimens, (more than 100) 
which I have seen—not one being pinnate, or even “ pseu- 
dopinaate.” (Nuttall.) Also, in having a spike hardly com- 
