NEW 



TORREYA — 



July, 1909 

 Vol. 9 No. 7 



THE TYPE AND IDENTITY OF DRYOPTERIS CLIN- 

 TONIANA (D. C. EATON) DOWELL* 



By Ralph Curtiss Benedict 



The problem as to the type and identity of Dryopteris Clin- 

 toniana (D. C. Eaton) Dowell is concerned with two questions : 

 first, as to the material on which the original material was based ; 

 second, the identity of this material. 



In a recent paper attention was called to the fact that some 

 doubt exists regarding both these questions. As noted at that 

 time, the material in the Yale herbarium identified by Eaton as his 

 Aspidhim cristatiun var. ClintonianiLm, comprises two specimens 

 of Dryopteris cristaia x niarginalis as well as several sheets of 

 what is now known as D. Clintoniana, but does not include any- 

 thing collected by Judge G. W. Clinton, in whose honor the fern 

 was named, and whose collection was cited in the original 

 description. 



Through information contained in a letter from Mr. G. E. 



Davenport to Miss Margaret Slosson, it was learned that the 



original " Clinton " fern had been deposited in the Museum of 



Natural Science at Springfield, Mass. Thanks to the courtesy 



of the Springfield Botanical Society, in whose care the specimen 



was placed, an opportunity was given to examine it, together 



with a letter of Judge Clinton's concerning it. The letter — said 



by Mr. Davenport to have been written to John Lewis Russell — 



reads as follows: "This Aspidiinn troubled me. I could not 



reconcile it with A. Goldiamim and it seemed a wide departure 



^ from A, cristatinn. So I sent it to Eaton. Prof. E. answered 



^ that he had received it from divers botanists who labelled it A. 



} Goldiamim, but that he regarded it as a form of A. cristatuvi, 



J [No. 6, Vol. 9, of ']>JKREYA, comprising pages 109-132 was issued June i, 1909.] 



_) 



Illustrated with the aid of the Catherine McManes fund. 



~> 133 



