CANADIAN FILICINE.K. 19l 



Co., and Green Head, St. John Co., N. B. — Fowler. Becoming common about St. John, N. B., 

 in moist shady clefts of limestone rocks. — G. U. Hay. Near Tadousac and at the Falls of 

 Riviere du Loup, Que. — D. A. Wall. In a deep gorge on the road from Gaspe Basin to 

 Fox River, and near Grand Etang, Que. ; on sea cliffs at Mont Louis and at the Falls of 

 Ste. Anne des Mouts River, Que. ; base of Mount Albert, Que. ; between Owen Sound and 

 Sydenham Falls, Out., and on both sides of the Falls on the perpendicular sides of narrow 

 rents in the heavily bedded limestone, the crevices often not more than two feet wide 

 although fifty feet deep ; abundant on debris under limestone cliffs within the Bow River 

 Pass, Rocky Mountains, N.W.T. ; on a limestone mountain, in Feace River Pass, Rocky 

 Mountains, Lat. 56°. — Macoun. 



f f Small ferns with a dark rachis. 



2. — A. Trichomanes, L, (Maidenhair-Spleenwort, Dwarf-Spleeuwort), Mx., Fl. Bor.- 

 Ara, II, 264. Swartz, Syn. Fil, 80. Gray, Man., 661. Hook, and Baker, Syn. Fil., 196. 

 Provancher, Flor. Can., 715. Lawson, Can. Nat., I, 2*74. Macoun's Cat., No. 2295. Ball, 

 Trans. N. S. Inst. Nat. Sci, IV, 150. "Watt, Can. Nat., IV, 363. Eaton, Ferns of N. A. , I, 

 2*71. Underwood, Our Nat. Ferns, etc., 98. 



A. melanocaulon, "Willd. Tursh, II, 666. 



This fern, which grows in the crevices of generally shaded and moist rocks, is an 

 evergreen, and varies from 3 to 9 inches in height. Rootstock short and scaly ; stalks 

 densely clustered, shining and black, which colour is continued through the rachis ; 

 fronds 2 to 7 inches long by about a third of an inch, or rather more, wide, linear in out- 

 line, somewhat rigid, and pinnate ; pinnie numerous, almost sessile, roundish-oval or 

 oblong, obliquely wedge truncate at the base, entire or crenate, and articulated to the 

 rachis. which persists long after they have fallen off; sori few and rather distant from the 

 midvein ; indusia delicate. 



Like A. viride, this plant is somewhat variable in the characters of its pinnae, which 

 in var. delicatulum of Lawson in Can. Nat., Vol. I, p. 274, are small and distant, while in 

 var. incisum, Moore, which has been collected in Vermont and may be looked for in Eastern 

 Canada, they are incisely lobed with the lobes often crenate or serrate. The latter variety 

 is the common form in California. Specimens with forking fronds are sometimes found. 



The leaves of A. Trichomanes, which are slightly mucilaginous and astringent, have 

 been used to prepare pectorals for chronic coughs, and as a substitute for Adiantum 

 Capillus-Veneris in the making of " Strop de Capillaire." 



This species may be said to be nowhere abundant with us, though generally distri- 

 buted from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Hartley "Water-fall, Pirate Harbour, Strait of 

 Canso, and on Gold River, near Chester, Lunenburg, N. S. — Rec. E. H. Ball. The "Look- 

 Out," Cape Blomidon, N. S. — Lawson. Near Three-mile House, Halifax, N. S. — Sommers. 

 Montreal, Que. — Maclagan. Chatham Tp., Argenteuil Co., Que. — D. R. McCord. Jupiter 

 River, Island of Anticosti, Que. ; Mont Louis and up the Ste. Anne des Mouts River, 

 Gaspe, Que.; Shannonville, near Belleville, Out.; crevices of Laurentian rocks in the 

 northern parts of Peterborough and Victoria Cos., Out. ; Red Pock, Lake Superior , and 

 westward to the Lake of the "Woods ; Clearwater River, near Methy Portage, N.W.T., 

 Lat. 57° ; along Peace River, within the Rocky Mountains, and in Bow River Pass, Rocky 

 Mountains::— Macoun. Great Shuswap Lake and Cascade Mountains, near Yale, B.C. — 



