WHERE OPpHIOGLOSSUM GROWS 47 
cattle avoided it, were very, very many specimens, the 
largest and best I have collected. This hillside was far 
too steep to climb with ease, and quite dry. 
H. E. RanstEr. 
The adder’s-tongue fern is interlinked with my early 
collecting days. I well remember the 14th of August, 
- 1892. Mother wished me to get her some high black- 
berries in a pasture not far from the house and I went 
rather reluctantly, as I preferred to go collecting. I 
returned highly delighted, having found, for the first 
time, the Ophioglossum growing abundantly in a dry 
hemlock loamy pasture, one-fourth of a mile from the 
house. It was a red letter day for me; and the previous 
three seasons I had trod on the plant frequently without 
being aware of its presence. Indeed, I was expecting 
to find my first plant in wet bogs: as the Gray’s Manuals 
placed ‘‘bogs”’ first as the habitat for this fern ally. 
A note in reference to my localities was published in 
the Linnaean Fern Bulletin IV: 62. October, 1896; 
also in the same issue, page 68, I offered 100 specimens 
of Ophioglossum as a Chapter Fern. Some of these 
specimens fell into the hands of Mrs. Elizabeth G. Brit- 
ton, who first wrote me in regard to them while I was in 
college at Ann Arbor. Quoting from her letter of 22 
November, 1897, written at New Dorp, Staten Island, 
she says: “I have received your interesting letter and 
the fine series of specimens of Ophioglossums from your 
mother. They really are remarkable for the variety of 
gradations and variations they show in this species, 
and are particularly valuable to me just now; as I have 
been puzzled where to draw the line between O. vulgatum 
and the colony of what we have called O. arenarium 
which we found at Holly Beach. I think if you could 
have seen it you would agree with me, that it was not 
O. vulgatum, and yet there are small forms of that 
