THE 



FERN BULLETIN. 



VOL. V. APRIL, 1897. No. 2- 



ASPLENIUM BRADLEYI. 



By C. E. Waters. 



THE entire coast- line of the Chesapeake Bay is very irregular, 

 giving rise to numerous tidewater estuaries and inlets, 

 which in this region are called "rivers" or " creeks," ac- 

 cording to their size. The streams proper are occasionally called 

 " creeks " also, but more often " runs " or " branches," or by the 

 familiar designation of "falls." The Patapsco river, on which 

 Baltimore is situated, has escaped these diminutives and is called 

 a river Along most of its course it has carved out for itself 

 through granite and gneiss and schist a deep valley, which is con- 

 sidered a splendid example of " gorge erosion " by our local geol- 

 ogists. But the botanists know it also, and the four- mile walk 

 down the river from Ilchester to Relay is a favorite one for an 

 all-day trip. Ferns and flowering plants abound in summer, 

 while at other times of the year hepatics, mosses and fungi are 

 very plentiful. 



Mr. J. H. Brummell, one of my fortunate friends who is con- 

 tinually coming across rarities, visited this region in the fall of 

 1893 and found on a couple of huge rocky walls close by the road- 

 side a fine lot of the rare fern, Asplenium Bradleyi. On visiting 

 the locality the next spring, my search was successful beyond my 

 expectations, for growing with the A. Bradleyi was another fern 

 that had ?luded me for years— A. montanum. The two species 

 were growing side by side, and the latter would hardly have been 

 overlooked by Mr. Brummell had it not resembled very closely 

 undeveloped A. Bradleyi. That this was not the case was shown 

 conclusively by an examination of the stems. In A. montanum 

 the stipe is brown only at the base, and the upper part of the 

 stipe and the entire rachis are flattened, with two parallel grooves 

 in front. In A. Bradleyi the entire stipe and the lower part of 

 the rachis are brown, while in place of the two grooves we have 



