116 AMERICAN FERN JOURNAL 
garding Ophioglossum and Botrychium. Two of these 
which are of special interest relate to O. vulgatum and B. 
Lunaria. 
When a spore of O. vulgatum germinates it appears 
probable from the work of Bruchman as reported by 
Campbell that the first green leaf is ten years in getting 
above ground. This first green leaf is really the second 
leaf of the plant and is always sterile. The third leaf 
may be fertile but is not always so. 
A similarly long time is required by B. Lunaria to pro- 
duce its first fertile leaf if Bruchman’s conclusions re- 
garding this species are correct. He reports that there 
are first produced seven to nine scale leaves at the rate 
of one a year. Following these come the green and 
fertile leaves. In B. virginianum, however, the first leaf 
produced is believed to extend above ground, although 
it is not fertile. The time required is not stated. 
Two points of interest attach to these facts. First, 
imagine planting spores or seeds and then having to wait 
ten years to have the crop appear above ground! Second, 
it is probable that the long developmental period re- 
quired explains some of the peculiarities in distribution 
of various species of these two genera. It is a common 
experience to search very thoroughly some likely place 
for Ophioglossum without finding a single plant. One 
may even have difficulty in finding the species in the 
same station two years in succession. 
If it requires ten years for O. vulgatum to develop its 
first green leaf from the spore stage one can understand 
why a field which had been ploughed nine years previous- 
ly would show no plants of this species, even though 
conditions were in all other respects favorable. If we 
go a little farther with hypothesis and suppose that the 
next year ten fruiting plants were found and all collected 
we should then have to wait ten years more for another 
crop, assuming that some spores had dropped in con- 
nection with the collection. 
