114 AMERICAN FERN JOURNAL 
England. He says “that in the eastern United States 
and Canada there are two distinct species of lady ferns, 
neither of which is conspecific with A. Filiz-femina 
(L.) Roth, of Europe.’ If, therefore, A. Filix-femina 
is not a native New England species, and if these crested 
plants found growing so abundantly at West Rock 
Park are true European A. Filiz-femina, it follows 
that they were planted there. 
This then seems to be the answer to the riddle: that, 
strange as it may seem, this dwarf crested form of 
lady fern, found well established in such abundance 
at West Rock Park, has not originated there naturally 
from spores but has been introduced by the city authori- 
ties as a definite part of the planting scheme, and shows 
every indication at present of maintaining itself in- 
definitely. 
West Roxsury, Mass. 
Notes on American Ferns—XI[' 
WILLIAM R. MAXON 
Tue Systematic PosiTion or PELLAEA DENSA.— 
Under the name Onychiwm densum and on the basis of 
very scant material from the Rogue River region of 
southwestern Oregon, Brackenridge described, in 1854, 
the peculiar but now well known fern usually called 
Pellaea densa. It has been placed under Cryptogramma 
by Diels, but in every essential character this latest 
reference is unsatisfactory. Actually the plant is of 
very close relationship to Cheilanthes californica, de- 
spite D. C. Eaton’s comment concerning the latter 
species that ‘there is no other North American fern 
which it resembles even slightly.’? At first sight the 
cp. 179. 
1 Published with the permission of the Secrotary of the Smithsonian 
Institution. 
? Ferns N. Amer. 1: 46. 1878. 
