6 AMERICAN FERN JOURNAL 
cultivated plants said to have been brought from Dover 
Plains in the Harlem Valley. 
Fernald has shown recently! that the American ostrich 
fern is specifically different from that of Europe, and has 
restored to it its first distinctive name, applied origin- 
ally by Michaux. Other early writers, like Willdenow, 
Desvaux, and Lowe, also considered it a valid species, 
although recent American and European botanists have 
taken it for granted that the European and American 
forms were conspecific. In distinguishing the two 
species Fernald, however, evidently overlooked a recent 
paper by Nieuwland? in which that writer has shown 
that the proper generic name for the ostrich ferns is 
Pteretis Raf., rather than Matteuccia Todaro. The lat- 
ter name, which has received wide recognition in recent 
years, was published in 1866, but it is antedated by 
that of Rafinesque by 48 years. There is no doubt as 
to the validity of Pteretis. Rafinesque publishes it 
in the second instalment of his caustic review of Pursh’s 
Flora,* which appeared in 1818. Upon page 268 of that 
work we find the following: “137. Struthiopteris, 
Willd. is abominable, should Pteris stand, being formed 
of two coupled names, Struthio and Pteris; and at.all 
events it is bad, therefore Pteretis may be substituted.”’ 
It thus appears that the type of the genus is Struthiop- 
teris germanica Willd. The European species should be 
known as Pteretis Struthiopteris (L.) Nieuwland, and the 
American one as P. nodulosa (Michx.) Nieuwland. 
24. OsMUNDA REGALIS L. Abundant in swamps, es- 
pecially in those high up upon the mountains. 
25. OsMuNDA CLayTontana L, Common. 
26. OSMUNDA CINNAMOMEA L. More common, per- 
haps, than the last, and often growing with it. The 
plants in this locality seem remarkably uniform. 
'Rhodora 17: 161-164. 1915. - 
*Amer. Midl. Nat. 3: 194-197. 1914. 
*Amer. Monthly Mag. 2: 265-269. 1818. 
