54 American Fern Journal 



Nephrodium filix-mas, one of your rarities, is one of 

 our commonest ferns. Nevertheless, before I left, I had 

 begun to sympathize with the cry of the American fernist, 

 "Oh for a few days in Vermont to look for the male 

 fern!" I believe your male fern is fairly constant in 

 type; ours is very variable, so that at least three distinct 

 forms are described, one being practically evergreen. 



Nephrodium cristatum is rare and extremely local with 



us. I do not think the variety Clintonianum has ever 



been found. We have, too, N. thelypteris, one of your 



very commonest ferns, but in England it is local, being 



quite absent in many districts. You would miss your 



New York fern, but you would find instead N. montanum, 



the mountain buckler fern, which it resembles in many 

 ways. 



Your polypodies are mainly the same as ours. Poly- 

 podium vulgare, P. dryopteris and P. phegopteris are 

 British species, but you have in addition P. hexagonoptera. 

 A point that interested me was the difference in habitat 

 between P. vulgare as it grows in the Connecticut woods 

 and as it grows here. In American it is essentially a 

 rock plant, growing on tops of huge boulders in next to 

 no soil, in dry situations where even Nephrodium mar- 

 ginale can scarcely exist. From these rocks it can be 

 pulled off in great sheets, the roots of numerous plants 

 being matted together. Here, we look for the fern, not 

 on rocks, but on old trees, growing in a considerable 

 depth of leaf mould ; or frequently they luxuriate in the 

 rich, cool hedges of our country lanes, such lanes as I 

 never saw in America. Your polypody too, is on the 



form 



leathery 



The species of shield ferns (usually classed under 

 Nephrodium here) are more numerous in New England. 

 Nephrodium spinulosum and its two varieties, inter- 

 medium and dilatatum, are familiar to American fernists. 



