JOURNAL 
OF 
The New York Botanical Garden 
VoL. XIV March, 1913 No. 159 
THE STAG-HORN FERNS 
Few common names of plants convey so exact and definite an 
idea of the plant as the name stag-horn or elk-horn ferns, ot 
which the species of the genus Alcicornium are universally kno 
From plate CXII, which represents a section of panes 
range no. 2 at the New York Botanical Garden, with the swinging 
baskets hanging above the walks between the other plants, each 
basket clasped by an Alcicornium, the likeness of these ferns’ 
fertile leaves to branching antlers may be clearly seen. Nor does 
the likeness stop here, for in size also the leaves of many of the 
species rival or exceed the elk’s horns. A. coronarium is known 
to spread its leaves to an extent of fifteen feet in its native forests, 
and other species are not far behind. 
me Alcicornium itself signifies horns of the elk. It was 
Pee ca to the genus in 1826 by the French writer Gaudi- 
chaud, on page 48 of Freycinet’s ‘‘Voyage Autour du Monde 
sur l'Uranie et la Physicienne,’’ Desvaux, a year later, in 1827, 
bestowed on the genus the name Platycerium, by which it became 
widely known, but ena Alcicornium, as the earlier name, 
should have the right o 
Gaudichaud’s silied to ee plants was not by any means 
the first mention of them in botanical literature. As early as 
1705 Plukenet figured and described a stag-horn fern from Africa 
and eighty years later Miiller followed with one from Siam. 
There came others from various countries, until today thirteen 
species are known. Only one of these, A. andinum, is from 
(Journat for February, 1913 (14: 43-61) was issued February 26, 1913] 
63 
