HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 7 
follow Moore (1857) and most recent scholars in accepting the name Dezn- 
stedtia punctilobula (Michx.) Moore. 
Two varieties of D. punctilobula have been described in recent years. 
Dennstedtia punctilobula var. cristata Maxon (1899) was found in Massa- 
chusetts by F. G. Floyd. Under cultivation the percentage of crested 
fronds produced varies greatly. ‘‘Some fronds have not only had the 
apex of every pinna doubly or trebly crested, but the apex of the frond 
itself has frequently been bifidly divided with heavily crested apices’’ 
(Davenport, 1905). I have several times seen fronds with the rachis bifur- 
cated 10 cm. or more below the apex. Each fork, then, bears a normal 
continuation of the leaf. Waters (1903) considers this condition ‘‘fre- 
quent.’’ He also states (p. 289) that “‘A form with rather narrow fronds, 
the pinne unequal in length and with the teeth of the ultimate segments 
very deeply cut, so that each vein forms the midrib of a narrow tongue- 
like segment, has been named D. Arlostuscula schizophylla.’’ Of course this 
name should read Dennstedtia punctilobula schizophylla. On the relation 
of these varieties to the typical form I have no opinion to express. 
In botanical literature other than taxonomic or floristic the hay-scented 
fern scarcely appears. Descriptions of its habit of growth, its glands, and 
long, slender rhizome are given by Williamson (1878, p. 117, plates xv, 
XLvI), Eaton (1879-1880, pp. 341-343, plate 44), Clute (1901, pp. 225-231), 
and Waters (1903, pp. 288-290). Frances Wilson writes an appreciative 
general account of these features in the dsa Gray Bulletin (1897), and 
Waters (1903) adds to a pleasing text photographs which are exquisite 
and true to life. Parsons (1899) and Eastman (1904) refer to this fern in 
a popular way. 
Eaton (1879-1880) and Waters (1903) speak of the concentric arrange- 
ment of light and dark tissues in the rhizome (cf. fig. 67), and the tax- 
onomic writers tell of the indusium in detail. De Bary (1884) describes 
the vascular bundle of Dennstedtia (naming this species along with three 
others in parenthesis) as having a tubular bundle, ‘‘which is closed as far 
as the foliar gap; the bundle which enters the leaf arises from the whole 
margin of the gap as a continuous concave plate [o. fig. 82], which is 
only occasionally split up at its base into several bundles lying side by 
side.’’ Gwynne-Vaughan in 1901 (p. 85) mentioned the present species as 
showing thick-walled elements in the phloem of the petiole. In 1903 
(p. 691) he includes D. punctilobula in a list of nineteen ferns with typ- 
ical and practically identical solenostelic structure, as described by him 
in Loxosoma cunninghamti. A page of text is devoted to a summary of 
the facts of structure in the group. A summary of taxonomic literature, 
with synonymy, is given on our pages 44 and 45 following. 
