66 Ophioglossum Engelmanni in Missouri 



In some deserted pits, thirty or forty feet in depth, 

 and irregular in outline, and an acre more or less in extent, 

 may be found W oodwardia areolata and virginica, Dryop- 

 teris patens, and a few clumps of Osmunda regalis, with 

 small clover-like fronds, growing in the crevices of the 

 crumbling limestone cliffs. 



In a digging along the railroad track, and in a washed- 

 out ravine at one of the mines, Dryopteris patens has 

 appeared, and grows vigorously. Both places are damp 

 and well shaded. A miniature cave, a mile to the west- 

 ward, is filled with a mass of the same fern. There 

 appears to be a spring near for the rocks are always 

 moist. 



Inverness, Fla. 





Ophioglossum Engelmanni in Missouri. 



Ernest J. Palmer 



It was several years after I had begun collecting the 

 ferns of Southwest Missouri, and particularly of my own 

 county of Jasper, that I succeeded in adding Engelmann's 

 adder's tongue to my list. Then I found a colony of 

 it growing within half a mile of my home, an illustra- 

 tion of the fact that we frequently go far afield in our 

 search for the strange and beautiful and overlook the 

 wonders close at hand. 



The station is at an altitude of about 1,100 feet, on a 

 gently sloping hillside with north exposure, along a 

 little branch near the town of Carterville, Missouri. 



_ llarities of the Mississippian lime- 

 stone, which here comes to the surface, a few xerophvtic 

 plants maintain a somewhat precarious existence amongst 

 the common upland prairie species. The more charac- 

 teristic of these are Bouteloua curtipctidula, AUionia 

 albida, Tragia ramosa, Maloattrum angustum, Sedum 



