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This fern was first discovered in 1853 in Winston County 

 Alabama, by Hon. T. M. Peters and named for him by Dr. Gray. 

 One mat of the plant in the Gray Herbarium sent by Mr. Peters 

 covers a large part of an herbarium sheet. More recently it has 

 been found in two other counties in Alabama. Professor L. M. 

 Underwood has visited the original locality and published an 

 account of it in the Botanical Gazette. 



In 1 901 I spent several weeks, from July to September, collect- 

 ing cryptogams in the vicinity of Tallulah Falls, Georgia. Several 

 days after my arrival there, I found my way along the course of 

 a small brook into a deep ravine. Toward the lower part of it, 

 on a large boulder I noticed a coating of some moss-like or 

 hepatic-like growth that in some way made me think of Tricho- 

 manes Petersii. I reached it as soon as I could and found that 

 the green parts resembled the Trichomanes fronds. The mat was 

 composed of minute rootstocks. In the approaching dusk I 

 eagerly held up the little fronds against a patch of sky and with 

 my lens made out the little sunken goblet denoting the "fruit" 

 at the apex of the frond. 



The boulder upon which the fern was growing was well 

 removed from the brook and so situated that even floods running 

 down the steep hillside after heavy rain apparently could hardly 

 reach the plants. The boulder was so large and abrupt that the 

 only specimens practically accessible to me were those on a 

 side away from the direction of floods ; so that apparently the 

 only water available to the plants was that of the moist atmos- 

 phere and direct falling rain. A few hundred feet away, in the 

 brook, a pretty cascade soaked me well with its spray while I 

 gathered delicate and luxuriant Hepaticae, but in that spray was 

 no trace of Trichomanes. Gathering a liberal proportion of the 

 plants within reach, I hurried to escape darkness in the ravine 

 and reached the inhabited level by an exhausting climb. 



Some weeks later, I visited the spot again in company with 

 Mr. W. L. Moss, of the University of Georgia. We first sought 

 the boulder and then took time to explore the banks of the 

 brook. We found an abundance of the fern, somewhat fresher, 

 on rocks doubtless sometimes reached by the waters of the 

 brook. 



