196 MACOUN AND BUEGESS ON 



One oi' the rarest of American ferns, being found in the United States only in central 

 New York and Tennessee, and in Canada at two widely separated points in New Bruns- 

 wick and Ontario. Very rare, near Woodstock, N. B., 1881. — Jas. Button. Abundant on 

 debris under the cliffs at Sydenham Falls and other localities around Owen Sound, Ont. — 

 Mrs. Roy. 



G-enus XII.— CAMPTOSOEUS, Link, Walking-Leaf. 



1. — C. rhizophylt/us, Link, (Common Walking-Leaf), Gray, Man., 663. Lawson, Can. 

 Nat., I, 2*79. Macoun's Cat., No. 2391. Eaton, Ferns of N. A., I, 55. Underwood, Our 

 Nat. Ferns, etc., 100. 



Asplenium rhizophyllum, L., Provancher, Flor. Can., 715. 



Scolopendrium rhizophyllum, Hook. 



Antigramma rhizophylla, J. Smith. 



An evergreen species, 5 to 1*7 inches high, growing in tufts on shaded, mossy lime- 

 stone, rarely sandstone or granitic, rocks. Rootstock short, creeping, and covered with old 

 stalk-bases ; stalks slender, herbaceous, dark brown near the base but green above, and 

 narrowly winged; fronds leathery, smooth, decumbent, lanceolate from a cordate and auri- 

 cled or hastate base, tapering above into a long and very slender prolongation, which 

 often roots and gives rise to new fronds, and these in turn to others, so that two or three 

 generations may be connected together; in size they measure from 4 to 12 inches long by 

 J to 1 inch wide just above the auricles, and their margins are entire or undulate ; veins 

 with free apices along the margins of the fronds, are reticulated near the midrib, and have 

 the linear sori variously situated on either side of them. 



The variation in this fern is considerable, especially as regards the size and shape of 

 the auricles, which are sometimes almost absent, at others prolonged to the extent of even 

 several inches, occasionally rooting at their tips, and yet again so separated from the base 

 of the frond as to make it appear three-cleft. Forking fronds are not rare, the bifurcation 

 generally taking place at the tip, but sometimes from near the auricles. Mr. Arthur, in the 

 «' Botanical Gazette," Vol. VIII, p. 199, has described a form which he calls var. intermedium. 

 It is distinguished by the absence in the stipe of a thread of dark sclerenchyma character- 

 istic of the normal form, while the fronds, which are thinner and narrower and have acute 

 bases without proper auricles, are more simply veined. Specimens much resembling this 

 form have been found by Mr. Fletcher at Ottawa, Out. Fronds with irregularly incised 

 margins have also been noticed from time to time. 



Except in a few localities in Ontario, rather a rare Canadian fern. Sorel, Que. — Lady 

 Dalhousie. Montreal Mountain, Que. — Provancher. L'Abord-a-Plouffe, on the River Jesus, 

 rear of the Island of Montreal, Que. — D. R. McCord. Isolated rocks in a shady pasture, 

 Hemmingford, Que. — /. B. Goode. Limestone rocks, west of Hull, and in a ravine near 

 King's Mere, Chelsea, Que. — J. Fletcher. Rocky woods a mile north-west of Oxford Station, 

 on the Ottawa & Prescott Railroad, Out. — B. Billings. Crevices of limestone rocks at the 

 railway bridge, Shannonville, and on boulders beyond the Big Spring, on the Marmora 

 Road, Hastings Co., Out. ; very abiindant on broken masses of rocks at Foster's Flats, 

 below the Whirlpool, Niagara Falls, Ont. ; in great profusion at Owen Sound, Ont., on 

 boulders and ledges under the cliffs on both sides of the Bay, and at Sydenham Falls. — 



