—79— 



enced by dryness, and the pinnules are smaller and nar- 

 rower, but not always. The intergrades are common, es- 

 pecially in recently changed woods, but in old woods, 

 where the forest has not been injured and one or both of 

 the forms is common, intergrades are, I believe, absent, 

 except where the local environment is different or influ- 

 enced by man. Small green or pink stiped plants are not 

 here considered, as they are evidently immature plants, 

 readily affected by position, drainage, light, absence or 

 abundance of humus. Names have been given with facil- 

 ity to these plants, but with little if any knowledge or care 

 as to the age or habitat of the individual plants compos- 

 ing such an extremely adaptive species, and which un- 

 doubtedly has an easy habit of morphological adjustment 

 to a varying or uneven local environment. 



In Newfoundland I have never seen plants with red 

 stipes. In South Carolina, in the vicinity of Charleston, 

 I have only been able to collect the red-stiped form. Is 

 it possible that all the far northern (boreal) plants are 

 green-stiped, and all of the southern lowland coastal plain 

 habitat (austral) are red-stiped? In the intervening area 

 (Carolinian and Transition) we know that both occur. 



The members of the Fern Society, scattered so widely 

 in so many localities, could during the coming summer 

 study the question. Specimens had best be examined in 

 woods where there has been no recent interference with 

 the forest and where the drainage has not been affected. 

 I have replanted typical plants of each form in my gar- 

 den, and am watching their behavior, hoping to catch one 

 or the other lapsing. Why, under precisely the same en- 

 vironment, one should be red and the other green, is what 

 I want to know. No- plant should be considered in this 

 connection which is growing where the sun can reach it, 

 for its influence is effective in producing other variations. 

 With some flowering plants age produces a deepening of 

 the reddish stems, with which sun exposure seems to have 

 something to do, but this is evidently not so with our 

 woodland ferns. 



Washington, D. C. 



