Further Notes on Pellaea! 
WILLIAM R. MAXON 
The following notes relate chiefly to the distribution 
of several United States species of Pellaea. Incidentally 
a new name is given to the southwestern plant long 
known as Pellaea aspera (Hook.) Baker, which Christen- 
sen has renamed Pellaea scabra. This peculiar species 
was first described under Cheilanthes by Hooker, to 
which genus it clearly belongs, rather than to Pellaea, 
regarding Pellaea in substantially the same sense in 
which it was founded by Link. 
PELLAEA compacta (DAVENP.) Maxon.—In a recent 
paper? dealing chiefly with the taxonomy of the south- 
western ferns usually associated under the name Pellaea 
Wrightiana Hook. the writer has taken up the name 
Pellaea mucronata D. C. Eaton for the common Cali- 
fornia plant long passing as P. ornithopus Hook. and 
has recognized two species in the Mexican border region, 
P. Wrightiana Hook. and P. longimucronata Hook., 
distinguished by characters which appear to hold in- 
variably. Incidentally a new species, Pellaea compacta, 
is described from southern California, its relationship 
being with P. mucronata. Although P. compacta ap- 
pears to be rare in herbaria it is said by Mr. S. B. Parish’ 
to be “frequent in the San Bernardino and San Jacinto 
Mts., growing in stony soil on dry slopes at 6000 to 
000 ft.,” and to have been collected also in the Provi- 
dence Mountains of the Mojave Desert. Its relation- 
ship to P. mucronata, with which it was supposed to 
grow, is clear; but Mr. Parish, writing recently from San 
Bernardino, remarks that there is a “marked limitation 
in the distribution of this fern and P. mucronata in 
ae Smithsonian 
_ ‘Published with the permission of the Secretary of the 
Institution. 
* Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington 30: 179-184. es 
* Fern Bull. 12: 8. 1904. 
8) 
