56 AMERICAN FERN JOURNAL 
tures serve the purpose for which they were designed, 
i. €., to give the beginner a good idea of the appearance 
of the species illustrated. 
With the pictures there is given brief text descriptions 
of each of the species, some citation of specimens, and 
further comment regarding the rarity, habits, and 
other points of interest. In this connection I noted a 
comment regarding Ophioglossum as follows: it ‘‘can- 
not be regarded as a common plant anywhere and it is 
safe to say that it is known to a greater number of 
persons from having seen herbarium specimens than 
from having seen it growing.” The statement is prob- 
ably correct in the main, but I should like to invite 
Mr. Hopkins to go with the Torrey Club toward the 
last of June to a Hackensack meadow where thousands 
of plants of Ophioglossum grow. : 
Mr. Hopkins’s opinion of Mrs. Parsons’s “ splendid little 
book” exactly meets the views of the reviewer who 
began his fern study with “How to Know the Ferns,” 
and found its pages interesting and helpful in this con- 
nection. Another discriminative comment, anent the 
walking fern, is as follows: “This fern owes much of 
its popularity to its name, which seems to be of such a 
nature that it excites the interest and admiration of 
even those who do not profess to be fern lovers.” 
Two of the spinulose ferns are given popular names 
which are entirely new to the reviewer. Dryopteris 
intermedia is called the “American shield fern,’’ and 
D. dilatata is called the “spreading shield fern.” Both 
names are applicable, but hardly distinctive enough. 
There are too many other American shield ferns, and 
there are also other spreading shield ferns. American 
spinulose fern would be better, and spreading spinulose 
fern, but there is already a good name for D. dilatata: 
it should be called the Alpine or mountain shield fern. 
But these are minor points. The reviewer is glad to 
recommend the manual for beginners’ use both in field 
ie 
