138 



men may be a hybrid is to be found in its sporangia which are 

 nearly all abortive. The few full-sized oiies seem to have 

 developed only sterile-looking spores. 



But whatever the exact identity of the original Clinton fern, it 

 is clearly different from the D. Clintoniana of common usage and 

 the question as to which form may properly bear this name re- 

 mains for consideration. Under ordinary circumstances, the 

 citation of Judge Clinton's collection together with the fact that 

 the plant was named in his honor would oe sufficient to establish 

 as type the single Clinton specimen seen by Eaton and now at 

 Springfield. In the present case, however, the description agrees 

 less with this specimen than with others in the Eaton herbarium. 

 Indeed the origin of the single character which appears to have 

 been derived exclusively from the Buffalo plant — that of the 

 maximum number of pinnulae per pinna — is open to question. 

 In unconformably divided leaves such as are those in question, 

 unless a minimum dimension is agreed upon beforehand, two 

 observers are likely to arrive at very different estimates as to the 

 number of any given part. Furthermore it is not at all impossi- 

 ble that Eaton may merely have " filled in " the label as re- 

 quested and returned the plant to Judge Clinton, afterwards 

 basing his description on material present in his own herbarium. 

 The facts then seem to justify the somewhat paradoxical treat- 

 ment of rejecting the Clinton specimen as type of Djyopteris 

 Clintoniana, and fixing if possible upon one of Eaton's early speci- 

 mens of the fern we know now as this species. 



The rules suggested by the Nomenclature Commission of the 

 Botanical Club of the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science in the " Propositions relating to the amendment 

 and completion" of the Vienna rules and recently published in 

 the Bulletin of the Torrey Club (36 : 55-74. 1909) seem appli- 

 cable at least in part, to the present case. Under Proposition 8, 

 No. 3°, is the following statement: "In default of an original 

 specimen, that represented by the identifiable figure or (in default 

 of a figure) description first cited or subsequently published, 

 serves as type." 



In Eaton's Ferns of North America, Volume 2, plate 66, 



