36 AMERICAN FERN JOURNAL 
ing from the car window the banks and pools along the 
railroad as we journeyed toward our place of meeting. 
It was A. A. Eaton, who was on the program for an eve- 
ning lecture on the New England Ferns. At the Skow- 
hegan meeting I also made the acquaintance of Dr. 
Dana Fellows, a former vice-president of the Chapter, 
Mr. E. B. Chamberlain, for many years past the mainstay 
of the Moss Society, and several others whom I now 
count as old acquaintances. 
Eaton had recently named Botrychium tenebrosum 
which he described as a species and vigorously defended 
in the pages of the Fern Bulletin against the attacks of 
Geo. E. Davenport who insisted that it was a form of B. 
matricariaefolium. During the social hour following 
his lecture some of the lady botanists playfully rallied 
him upon his temerity in opposing so high an authority 
as Davenport. Eaton replied modestly, expressing 
great respect for Davenport’s knowledge of the subject, - 
but adding that he could not disregard the facts as he 
found them. 
A year or two later Eaton visited me in Vermont, 
where he had gone to look for certain orchids. And I 
called upon him several times at his home in North Eas- 
ton, Mass. to get his help on some fern problems. He 
was working upon a revision of the genus Isoetes at this 
time and had several species growing in pots in the door- . 
yard. 
He used to correspond by postcard in a telegraphic 
style designed to condense much into a few words. On 
a card dated June 12, 1905, he writes, ‘Found simplex 
in a meadow of Ophioglossum here. Surprised. 
Thought it grew in dry ground. But I am of opinion 
Dr. Robinson is right and tenebrosum is ecological form 
of simplex. Though to tell the truth it is hard to re- 
concile all differences. ”’ 
Much of my talk and correspondence with Eaton had 
reference to the various forms of Nephrodium, as we 
