THE FERN BULLETIN 



Vol. XIII. OCTOBER, 1905. No. 4 



LIBRARY 



NEW YOR 



SCHIZiEA PUSILLA IN CAPE BRETON. 



G A "• 



By George E. Nichols. 



It may be of interest to note that this summer I found 

 a new station for Schisaa piisilla, in Cape Breton Island. 

 The locality is about two hundred miles northeast of the 

 station reported in 1879 at Grand Lake, Nova Scotia, by 

 Mrs. E. G. Britton; (Bull. Tory. Bot. Club, 6: p. 361). 

 The ferns were growing- between the hummocks in one 

 of the raised peat bogs characteristic of the so-called 

 " Barrens " of Cape Breton, about ten miles from North- 

 east Margaree, in Victoria County. 



The specimens are very similar to those collected by- 

 Mrs. Britton. and compared with the typical form from 

 New Jersey are notably dwarfed, the fertile fronds being 

 hardly two .inches high. 



Specimens have been placed in the Eaton Herbarium, 

 and others sent to the herbarium of the New York 

 Botanical Gardens and to the National Herbarium. 



The circumstances under which I found the fern were 

 not such as to permit my making any very detailed study 

 of the locality. A friend and I had been working our 

 way through the woods for several days, following a 

 blazed trail and carrying packs weighing fifty pounds 

 apiece. The trail disappeared when we came to the 

 barren. It was raining hard and the prospects of an- 

 other night's camp in the rain were not over enticing. 

 We had been trying to pick up the trail for an hour or 

 so when I happened on Schizcca. 

 ^ As I mentioned before, the fertile fronds are only 

 CD 2 inches high. I had been on the lookout for mosses 

 *— more especiallv, and when I first noticed Schizcea I took 



