180 EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT ON THE STATE CABINET. 



SIMPLEX, Hitchcock, Simyle-fronded Botrychium. 



Frond simple, 3-lobed or 3-cleft ; segments unequal ; spike subcompound, 

 interrupted, unilateral, bearing sessile capsules of the size of a mustard 

 seed. 



Frond solitary, from a torn membranous sheath, erect, two to four 

 inches high, glabrous, pale green, consisting of a small spatulate leaf an 

 inch long and one-third of an inch broad, usually divided into three, 

 rarely four, unequal, somewhat rounded segments, with their margins a 

 little notched. From the base of the leaf, about an inch from the ground, 

 springs a stalk, twice or thrice the length of the leaf, bearing a sub- 

 compound unilateral interrupted spike of capsules, sub-tworowed. Root. 

 sending forth stout simple fibers : Hitchcock in Sill. Jour. 



Most of the plants found in the following stations are of the lowest 

 forms and extremely variable ; from one to seven and a half inches high. 

 Sterile frond usually remote and always separate from the spike; in the 

 smallest specimens a minute spur just under a single spore-case terminating 

 the short stem ; in larger plants an oblong entire bract, lower on a stipe 

 bearing a few sporangia ; in ordinary forms springing from below the 

 middle of the stipe, short-stalked, half an inch long, once incised or parted 

 more or less deeply, with its fertile spike branching at base ; in the largest 

 specimens rising from the stipe near the root, long-stalked, an inch and a 

 quarter in length, three -fourths of an inch broad, four times pinnately 

 divided, the lowest lobes separate from the higher and all enlarged at the 

 end, its fertile frond terminating the long stalk, two inches in length, 

 having three or four pairs of branches, the lowest branching in turn. Stem 

 slender, weak, bending with the fruit. 



Cedar swamps : shady borders of the State marsh near Jerusalem hill, 

 Litchfield. Herkimer county; on moss-covered bogs and mounds. 



Pastures : near Fall brook, west of Fish creek. Rare. May, June. 



OPHIOaLOSSUM, L. . Adder' s-tongue. 



VULGATUM, L. Common Ophioglossum. 



Fronds of all forms from orbicular and oval to elliptical-lanceolate ; often 

 four inches in length, stems sometimes over a foot high. 



Spikes occasionally with only a few sporangia at base, above becoming 

 a second frond, three or four lines wide, an inch and a half long. 



Dwarf forms occur, having a very short stipe, and a spike only half as 

 high as the frond is long. 



Pastures east of Mud lake, Warren ; damp banks among arbor vitse on the 

 shores of Cedar lake. Litchfield; south Herkimer county. Grassy ridges on 

 the Deerfield hills, opposite Utica. Mossy bogs in the old Oriskany swamp. 

 Copses and rich mounds near Fall creek, north of Taberg. Dry hills between 

 Brownville and Dexter, Jefferson county. Marshes at the foot of Owasco lake, 

 Cayuga county. Open woods in Henrietta, Genesee county. 



The dwarf form at Exeter, Otsego county, Torrey Fl. N.Y.; and in the 

 Fall brook pasture, west of Fish creek. Rare. June, July. 



LYCOPODIACE^. Club-mosses, 



LYCOPODIUM, L. Lycopodia, 



LUCIDULUM, Michaux. Shining Lycopodium, 



Mossy banks, ravine-sides, moist woods. Common. August - December. 



INUNDATUM, L. Overflowed Lycopodium, 



Bogs and marshy borders of ponds. North Herkimer county, on the wet 

 flats surrounding elevated ponds at each end of Bald rock, north of the first 

 three in the chain of Eight lakes, a form with short forking stems, and small 

 narrow weak entire erect leaves. 



