Bulletin Santa Barbara Society of Natural History. Vol. I 



NOTES ON THE FERNS OF THE CHANNEL ISLANDS, 



Off the Coast of California. 



BY DR. LORENZO G. YATES, F. L. S.. ETC. 



THE coast line of California has a general trend 

 north and south, for nearly its entire length of 

 770 miles. This general direction is broken at a 

 point about 200 miles south from San Francisco, 

 where it makes a sudden bend easterly for a distance 

 of about 90 miles. 



South of this east and west line of coast, at a dis- 

 tance of some 25 miles, and running parallel there- 

 with, is a chain of islands which form the southerly 

 wall of the. Santa Barbara Channel. 



These islands consist of the San Miguel, Santa 

 Rosa, Santa Cruz, and the Anacapas. They are all 

 of volcanic origin, and have attracted considerable at- 

 tention from botanists, from the many peculiarities of 

 their flora discovered and recorded within the past few 

 years, and have presented some puzzling questions, 

 the solution of which bid fair to remain open questions, 

 for some time to come. 



Among these peculiarities are the discovery of a 

 large number of species, and some genera of plants 

 peculiar to these islands, or to certain islands of the 

 group. 



Prof. Edward L. Greene in his "Catalogue of the 

 Flowering- Plants and Ferns Collected on the Island 

 of Santa Cruz," published in the "Bulletin of the Cal- 

 ifornia Academy of Sciences, 1887," enumerates 321 

 species of plants, of which number 48 species were at 

 that time considered peculiar to Santa Cruz and the 

 other islands off the coast, while 28 species were pe- 

 culiar to Santa Cruz itself. 



This catalogue is preceded by interesting notes and 

 generalizations, in which he calls attention to the 



