94 AMERICAN FERN JOURNAL 
fertile plants appear very early, and are followed some 
weeks later by the branching green sterile plants; but 
not infrequently along with the latter are found indi- 
viduals with whorls of green branches, but bearing a 
fruiting cone at the apex. Three specimens ot this 
sort were collected during a walk of less than a mile 
along the trac!s of the Oregon Electric Railway between 
Orville and East Independence in Marion County, 
Oregon, on May 3 of the present year. All of them were 
growing in very dry gravel between the tails. On 
June 18, about a hundred similar plants were found 
in finely crushed rock ballast of the Southern Pacific 
tracks near Divide Station, Lane County—again, in a 
situation of unusual dryness. The typical form seems 
to prefer a low, moist habitat. This difference in hab- 
itat gives rise to the conjecture that the variation may 
be due to a deficiency of moisture and absence of shade. 
A similar specimen sent the writer by Professor J. K. 
Henry from Vancouver, B. C., is determined by him 
as the variety frondescens A. Br. I have not seen the 
type-specimen, but it is a question whether such forms 
should be recognized as forming a true variety, or merely 
as teratological ‘“‘sports’’ like four-leaved Trilliums. 
The cones seem to be normally developed, and the green 
branches fully as long as in the ordinary sterile plants. 
A fourth specimen collected on May 3 shows a whorl | 
of branches at each of the four lower nodes, a fully 
developed fruiting cone at the fifth node (about 18 em: 
above the base) and a continuation of the stem with 
at least four more whorls above the cone.’ All these 
specimens will be deposited in the herbarium of the 
Fern Society, and it would be interesting to know if 
this tendency to monomorphism has been observed by 
other collectors either in this country or in Europe.—J. 
C. Netson, Salem, Oregon. 
1 This specimen appears in the middle of the group of plants represented 
in Plate 5. 
