AMERICAN FERN Socrery 123 
Southern British Columbia. Both these records are 
probably based on collections by Mr. A. J. Hill, one of 
whose specimens is in Eaton’s herbarium at Harvard. 
There are there, also, two other monomorphic specimens, 
one collected on the “lower Fraser River, 49 N. Lat.” 
by Dr. Lyall in 1859, the other by Mr. J. B. Flett at 
Tacoma, Wash., in 1901. 
In Europe, monomorphic forms are well known. 
Milde, in his monograph of the Equisetums, distin- 
guishes two kinds of them. In one, which he calls var. 
frondescens, the fertile stem instead of dying, as usually 
happens, when the spores are ripe, persists and sends 
out green branches from at least some of the joints, 
the fruiting cone and the upper part of the stem wither- 
ing away. In the other, var. serotinum, the sterile stem 
produces, late in the season, a fruiting cone at the apex. 
Luerssen says the first form is rather rare but that the 
second “may be expected occasionally wherever £. 
Telmateia occurs.’’ European botanists agree with 
Mr. Nelson that drought is the probable cause of these 
queer forms. Francis, in his book on British Ferns,’ 
states that var. serotinwm can be produced at will in 
Specimens grown in ‘pots simply by cutting off the 
supply of water at the-proper time. 
The proliferous' form mentioned by Mr. Nelson, 
in which the stem grows up through the fruiting cone 
has also been found in Europe. Milde calls it “var. 
serotinum d) proliferum.”—C. A. W. 
American Fern Society 
Shortly before this number of the JourNAL went to 
press, the editors received an interesting and welcome 
letter from one of the members. In it he said: “It 
C———— 
"Quoted by Clute in The Fern Allics, p. 52. 
