25- 

 month ago, in May, 1900, four plants appeared from the other pro- 

 thallial sections in this pot. The fronds are as yet small, all nor- 

 mal, and it is, of course, impossible to say what they will be. Two 

 other attempts at crossing cristatum and marginale have failed to 

 produce plants. 



I have been unfortunate in my attempts to cross Aspleniwn 

 ebeneuin and Caniptosorus rhizophyllns. Prothalli resulting from 

 spores repeatedly sown in sterilized earth have repeatedly died. 

 But I have now several archegonial sections of Camptosorus, and 

 antheridial sections of ebeneum, which were cut and planted to- 

 gether last winter. One of the archegonial sections has produced 

 a peculiar growth which seems to be a proliferous bud of some 

 kind ; the^ other sections have branched and are doing well. 



Whether plants will arise from these and prove a hybrid, and 

 that hybrid ebenoides, time alone will show. 



Andover, Mass., June 27, 1900. 



ATHYRIUri AS A GENUS. 



Bv B. D. GILBERT. 



During the last year I have been engaged in a special study of 

 the group of ferns classified throughout the last half century or 

 more as Asplciiini>i ftli.r-foemina. In the course of this study it 

 seemed natural that I should take up also the question of the genus 

 of these ferns ; and having done so, I propose to. lay the results of 

 that study before the Fern Chapter, as briefly as the subject will 

 permit. 



Although all writers on ferns are obliged to recognize Athyrium 

 by the character of its sori, the tendency has been, since the publi- 

 cation of Hooker's Species Filicum, to make it a section or sub- 

 genus of Aspleniuin. Previous to Hooker's time. Roth's genus 

 Athyrium had been quite generally accepted by German and even 

 by English botanists ; and since Hooker's time, Thomas Moore, 

 the most careful monographer of the English ferns, has retained 

 Athyrium for filix-foemi na and its varieties. In our own country, 

 since the time of Pursh, who followed the Linnaean nomenclature, 

 and placed these ferns under Polypodiutn, and Dr. Jacob Bigelow, 

 who adopted the nomenclature of Swartz and regarded them as 



