116 AMERICAN FERN JOURNAL 
and its fronds removed. Too tardy compunction led 
me to stick the roots back into the ground, but the 
damage was a double one and the plant died. For 
several years I would periodically search for the plant 
near a certain big rock, but in vain. 
Perhaps others like myself have had the feeling that 
it is right to collect all the plants we need for our her- 
baria and for exchanging. We are too apt to forget 
that the plants will be dead and gone, no matter how 
scientifically they may be collected. 
This brings me quite naturally to the large number of 
specimens of Asplenium Bradleyi that are in my her- 
barium. With them grew A. montanum, but very spar- 
ingly. Even my devastating hand did not take all of 
the plants, but there were none to be seen four or five 
years ago. The place became known to too many 
botanists, for the ferns were rare and interesting enough 
to induce them to take the trip on the railroad or, what 
was better, a tramp of twenty miles or so. 
One other rare fern, to my knowledge, has been ex- 
terminated from the Baltimore region. Lygodiwm pal- 
matum once grew in profusion in a little swamp beside 
the Baltimore-Washington turnpike. As late as 1902 
fruiting plants three and four feet tall could be seen 
there. Ten years later two of us spent a long time look- 
ing, but did not see a single plant of any size. 
In more than one manual Botrychium simplex is said 
to be found in the Baltimore region. Mr. Edgerton, — 
who made the original discovery near Ellicott City on 
the Patapsco River, told me years ago that the plants 
were in one corner of a pasture. Of course the cows 
stood in that corner in preference to any other. The 
fern is no longer to be found near Ellicott City. 
The only station for B. neglectum was not a stone’s 
throw from a house. Suburban improvements have 
_ been the death of the dozen or so plants. A few acres 
