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aspect of the plant is moss-like, the individual fronds so small 

 that a penny will cover several, it is not surprising that it has not 

 been more frequently found. Indeed, its discovery must always 

 be a sort of "lucky accident." How such a mite of a fern ever 

 got into its present place, what its ancestors were, and by what 

 chain of missing links it has descended from the nearest related 

 species, would make interesting reading, I am sure, if we could 

 make it out. 



To come to more familiar fern-worts, instances are multi- 

 plying of their occurrence much beyond what we usually regard 

 as their geographical limits. So far as can be judged from -sterile 

 specimens, Adiantum capillus- Veneris has been found in New 

 York State ; Mr. Eaton has placed on record a station for Lycopo- 

 dium alopecuroides on an island along the coast of Massachusetts ; 

 and Polypodium polypodioides has been reported from Staten 

 Island and northern Pennsylvania. I leave it to wiser heads to set- 

 tle whether these are recent and permanent extensions of ranges ; 

 whether they are remnants of what was once a much wider range 

 or only adventitious plants. And however it may be decided, the 

 fact remains that we need not cease expecting to find a plant be- 

 cause we may be somewhat out of its known range. Concerning 

 Lycopodium alopecuroides, I may add that I have found what 

 appears to be this species on Long Island. When collected it was 

 too young for satisfactory identification, but, from its manner of 

 growth, I think it may be alopecuroides. I hope to collect it 

 later in the season and make sure. Until Mr. Eaton discovered 

 it in Massachusetts, it was not known from farther north than 

 New Jersey. 



Before leaving this subject, it may be well to say a few words 

 about our ferns, or what are supposed to be our ferns, in foreign 

 lands. The fact is recognized that several of our eastern Amer- 

 ican ferns have been found in far-away places. In this category 

 I shall not consider species of such world-wide distribution as the 

 Polypody, Bracken, Dryopteris aculeata, etc., nor yet the species 

 that are common to the far north in both hemispheres, as Asple- 

 nium ruta-muraria, Asplenium viride, Phegopteris Phegop- 

 teris and others. The latter might have been distributed from 

 any point in the north, but how Onoclea sensibilis and other 

 ferns have bridged the distance from here to Japan is not so 

 easily conceived. 



There are three theories which aim to explain how this and 



