Notes AND NEWS 91 
pearance are almost exactly alike may be easily separ- 
ated by a study of the scale characters. 
It has been common practice to use as characters of 
generic rank definite variations in the venation of 
which Polypodium contains a large number. Poly- 
podium has been separated into a number of genera 
on this very basis but Maxon reports that at least one 
of these kinds of variation may take place even within 
a single species. This is Polypodium polypodioides, 
the common gray polypody of the southern states which 
is also common farther south. According to Maxon, 
it is impossible to draw any other line of distinction 
between leaves of this plant with free veins and others 
with the characteristic areolation or net-veining of 
section or genus, Goniophlebium. 
Polypodium, in the broad sense, has upwards of one 
thousand species, the proper separation of which into 
genera or subgenera is yet to be devised. 
RU. B, 
Wanted for study: plants or leaves showing varia- 
tion in the amount of division. ' 
In connection with the study of Nephrolepis varia- 
tions, I am anxious to obtain leaves illustrating similar 
or different types of variations among wild ferns. I 
should be glad to receive for the Fern Society Garden 
at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden plants of the Christ- 
mas fern with deeply incised or twice-divided leaves, 
as well as similar leaves of other species. 
R; ©. B. 
A pooR PLACE FOR FERN LOVERS.—W. W. Rowlee, 
reporting on a collection of plants from gouthern Pata- 
gonia,* records only four ferns and one lycopod as col- 
* Bull Torrey Bot. Club 44: 305-322. June 1916. 
