CATALOGUE. 339 



oedeb. OPHIOGLOSSACE^E. 



The Ophioglossacece are now considered an order distinct from Filices, 

 distinguished by the erect vernation of the fronds, and by having the 

 sporangia formed of the interior tissue of the frond, and not a mere trans- 

 formation of surface-hairs, as in true Ferns. The prothallus, green and 

 formed above-ground in Filices, is here devoid of chlorophyll and formed 

 beneath the surface of the earth. Besides Botrychium and Ophioglossum, 

 this order contains one other genus, Helminthostachys, represented by a 

 single species found in India, Ceylon, the Philippines, etc. 



I. BOTEYCHIUM. Swartz. 

 Botrychium Liiuaria, L. 



Bard Creek Valley, Colorado, Dr. Parry, Sept. 1874. This occurs sparingly from the Rocky 

 Mountains of British America to Labrador, throughout Europe and Northern Asia, and is reported from 

 Australia and Tasmania. 



Botrychium simplex, Hitchcock, var. compositum, LascL. 



Sterile portion composed of two or three pinnately incised segments. — 

 Milde, Fil. Eur. et Atl. p. 198. 



Mount Lyell, California, in a glacial meadow at 10,000 or 11,000 feet elevation, John Muir. High 

 Valley in Yellowstone Park, Dr. Parry. Lake Superior to New England. Northern and Middle Europe. 

 The specimens from California are only one or two inches high, and have the sterile portion divided into 

 three parts, the middle one largest, all of them pinnately incised. Those from Yellowstone Park aro 

 taller, and show grades of transition towards a simpler form. They are all rather stout, and have the 

 sterile portion set well towards the base of the common stem. Mr. J. W. Dun's Botrychium, collected near 

 Emigrant Gap, at 5,000 feet elevation, is probably this same thing, but I have not seen his specimens. 



Botrychiun lanceolatum, Angstrom. 



Frond small, 3—9 inches high, somewhat fleshy ; the sterile segment 

 closely sessile at the top of a long common stalk, in the smallest forms 

 3-lobed, in larger ones broadly triangular, twice pinnatifid, the divisions 

 lanceolate, entire, or toothed, all set on at an oblique angle ; veins forking 

 from a midvein ; fertile segment short-stalked, slightly overtopping the 

 sterile, 2-3-pinnate.— "Bot. Notis. (1854) p. 68." Milde, Filices Europse et 

 Atlantidis, p. 197. Eaton in Gray's Manual, ed. 5, p. 671. 



On a grassy stream-bank, near Mt. Ouray, Colorado, T. S. Brandegee, 1877. Lake Superior to Now 

 York, Pennsylvania, and New England. Scandinavia, Lapland, and Siberia ( Milde). 



This species and the closely allied B. matricaricefolium will be illustrated in an early number of the 

 " Ferns of North America." 



