88 AMERICAN FERN JOURNAL 
direction along the edge of the forest, filling all the clear- 
ings and skirting the wood roads but avoiding both the 
deep shade and the open field, for a distance of a mile 
or more and down to about the 2000 foot level. 
This is the sixth station for the Male Fern to be dis- 
covered in Vermont, all within the past eleven years. 
It is many times more extensive than any of the earlier 
stations, several hundred feet higher in elevation and 
carries the range about 25 miles further north into 
Washington County. The area covered, which must 
exceed 20 acres, and the apparent age of some of the 
plants render it highly probable that the fern has in- 
habited this hill from primeval time ; although land at 
the lower end of the station has been cleared and settled 
for a century or more. 
The Male Fern was first discovered in Vermont by 
Miss Nancy Darling, who, in September, 1905, found a 
group of about a dozen plants in the town of Hartland, 
in the shade of poplar and maple trees at an elevation 
of about 1200 feet, and quite near the road. Out- 
ir igs ledges in the vicinity are described as mica 
schist. 
Mrs. Mabel Strong Heseltine discovered the fern in 
the southern part of Woodstock in August, 1906. She 
writes, ‘The Station is ina partially open spot, eviden tly 
an old-time wood road and in spring a water course, 
shaded by butternuts and other hard wood trees of 
-large size. On the right and on the left there is a dense 
growth of maple saplings, but no ferns beyond the 
Partially open ground.” The locality is further = 
Seribed as crowning a pasture hill and having a northem 
exposure. The number of plants in this station, * 
iven as one hundred or more, and the elevation 18 
nearly 2000 feet. 
The Bridgewater station, also discovered by Mr: 
Heseltine jn 
a 
1909, is largely in the highway. The plants 
