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bered the field where we found them, but alas, the inroads 

 of civilization had turned that field into city lots and 

 flower gardens. The character of soil, etc., was still clear 

 in my mind, and I soon found such a place, and after a 

 careful search, discovered, in a few scattered bunches of 

 yellow, semi-disintegrated leaves, the Botrychium I was 

 after; this was in April. Attributing its condition to an 

 unprecedented drouth, which had been killing hardier 

 plants, and fearing its effect might be permanent, I care- 

 fully transplanted half a dozen roots, giving them what I 

 considered to be the proper amount of water, but they 

 failed to revive and were, for the time, forgotten. 



Late in July, the B. obliquum, in its various interesting 

 but bewildering varieties, began to appear. They stayed 

 with us until October, then came frost, and after arrang- 

 ing the specimens gathered that season, I started on the 

 wait until spring should come again. Some days later 

 (October 20), almost by accident and much to my sur- 

 prise, I found my neglected roots, planted the April be- 

 fore, were putting out leaves. I went to the place where 

 I had gotten them, and the same life was visible there, 

 and within a week I had spotted more than a dozen colo- 

 nies of this same fern, some of them miles from the orig- 

 inal location. For weeks they showed no change, merely 

 the little triangular, delicately compound leaf clinging 

 close to the ground. On November 20, and almost sud- 

 denly, the healthier plants all showed a tightly curled but 

 perfectly formed fertile frond in the axil of the leaf and 

 barely above ground. They remained in this condition 

 until late in January, when a touch of warm weather 

 unfolded them, and in some places the ground was liter- 

 ally covered with them. 



Hardly had this fertile frond begun to mature, in the 

 older and more fully developed plants, than a secondary 

 sterile frond started on the opposite side of the fertile 

 stipe, and in an incredibly short space of time had grown 

 alongside the primary one, having come from the same 

 rootstock but from a separate bud. Frequently, how- 



