A CrEsTED FERN IN LANDSCAPE PLANTING 113 
seemed to indicate artificial introduction rather than 
natural reproduction from spores and there the matter 
was allowed to rest for a time. 
have recently received the following letter from 
the President of the Department of the Public Parks 
of New Haven, which confirms my suspicion of inten- 
tional introduction: 
New Haven, Connecticut, 
: February 13, 1918. 
Dear Mr. Fioyp: 
In reply to your inquiry I beg to say that Mr. Amrhyn, Super- 
intendent of Parks for a number of years, tells me that he set out 
a dwarf fern both at East and West Rock Parks for several years 
in succession in quantity. It must be this to which you refer, 
although the locality does not exactly correspond to your deserip- 
tion. If you wish further information perhaps I could elicit it 
by sending your letter to the University Professor of Botany, which 
I will do if you say so. But clearly these dwarf ferns were planted, 
Yours truly, 
T. S. Woo.sEY. 
This evidence seems to settle beyond a doubt that 
the form in question was actually artificially introduced 
and was designed to form part of the Park planting 
scheme 
This crested form has been detected by others at 
West Rock Park and at East Rock Park. In the Gray 
Herharium there is a sheet bearing this label, “ Athyrium 
Filix-femina, var. corymbiferum, forma strictum Druery 
[det. B. L. R.]. East Rock and Mt. Carmel, near New 
Haven, Conn. Coll. Miss Mary G. Miner. Comm. 
Sept. 12, 1906.” The specimens match many of the 
plants I saw at West Rock Park. On this sheet a note 
has been added by Prof. F. K. Butters, “A form of 
true European A. Filix-femina.” In Prof. Butters’s 
paper on the American lady ferns* it is shown that the 
true European Filiz-femina is not found wild in New 
? Rhodora. 19: 169. 
