18 AMERICAN FERN JOURNAL 
of the older ones who are no longer with us will always 
be pleasant. Two visits to the home of B. D. Gilbert 
will not be forgotten, nor will one or two talks with the 
jovial L. M. Underwood. Somehow it seemed a most 
surprising thing that Geo. E. Davenport should be an 
art dealer in Boston. During one visit to his store he 
spoke of Asa Gray in terms of deep affection, while 
tears came to his eyes. He was anxious to get a living 
plant of a glandular form of Osmunda cinnamomea 
which had recently been found near Baltimore. I think 
my first communication with him was in 1894, a week 
or two after the appearance of the number of the Bot- 
anical Gazette in which he described the new Dryopteris 
simulata. Two months before, in October, I had found 
great beds of it near Baltimore and, unable to decide 
between D. thelypteris and D. noveboracensis, had kept 
two fronds. One of these was pronounced by Daven- 
port to be typical. With such confirmation there could 
be no doubt about there being a large colony, perhaps 
two or three acres in extent, far beyond what might be 
called the normal range of the species. As to the Os- 
munda, which has been found in New Jersey and Miss- 
issippi and must occur elsewhere on the Coastal Plain, 
Davenport was interested in finding out whether it 
would retain its glandular pubescence in cultivation. 
He died the year after the plant was sent to him, so that 
I never learned about how his plants behaved. 
This suggests a word of caution to those who are new 
students of ferns. It is never a thing amiss for them 
to have their “finds” verified if the fern they think 
forms of Athyrium asplenioides (filix-foemena). Re- 
cently a correspondent, who with his wife has been in- 
