| des AMERICAN FERN JOURNAL 
the article, and has struck me in others, is that there 
does not seem to be the same general impulse in the 
States as prevails here to collect not merely fronds for 
herbaria, but specimens of the living plants for cultiva- 
tion and propagation by spores or otherwise. Here, this 
is always done, and the result is that practically all the 
named and dation’ forms found figure in not one but 
all collections of note as growing plants. In this way 
we are able to judge far better of the character than 
from merely dried and compressed specimens, apart 
from the fact that the mere collection of fronds for 
drying, if the material be scanty, is apt to destroy the 
plants entirely, instead, as might be done by one plant, 
propagating and perpetuating them. 
ome years ago, I read with pain, in the Fern Bulle- 
tin, of the discovery of a single rare specimen, which was 
_ at once denuded of its fronds for herbarium specimens, 
| while the finder, not content with this, commissioned a 
friend to visit he: locality in the sitaian and obtain the 
second crop, which almost inevitably meant death to 
the plant. This, to my mind, is absolute vandalism. 
Several, indeed most of my own discoveries have been 
solitary plants, and in every case these have been care- 
fully lifted, swathed in damp moss, and taken home 
ratact, ‘the result being eretiually the wide distribution 
es or offsets, and the consequent 
eenng in of new forms. Mr. Merrill mentions several 
forms of Polypodium vulgare which from the descrip- 
tions and names I cannot allocate to known forms here. 
_ For instance, he speaks of one of his own finds occupying 
an extended station, with hundreds of “beautifully 
__ erisped and ruffled” fronds, and none of the type, ob- 
ey a splendid find. He does not, however, collect 
lant or plant few fronds 
