—40— 



or P. Swartzii, or P. vaccinia?foliuui. Or possibly it may be a 

 tree, up whose trunk and along whose branches one of these ferns 

 is climbing, or which harbors in a cleft of its bark some pretty 

 plants of P. plumula, or in the crotch of a branch a plant of P. 

 Phyllitidis, with its long stiff leaves sticking up like a bunch of 

 plumes. All these, you must remember, are the common things 

 that meet your eyes every day without going out of the highway 

 of travel ; and they are varied with the sight of cocoanut groves 

 and royal palms and coffee plantations and banana plantations, 

 and everything that goes to make up a tropical landscape. 



One of the most interesting features of the Jamaica fern 

 flora is the large number of endemic species that are peculiar to 

 that island alone. It would seem as if the work of differentiation 

 had gone on there with greater activity and more vital power 

 than in almost any other country in the world. There is not a 

 genus of any importance in this Order which does not contain 

 from one to a dozen species that are not found elsewhere. Nine- 

 teen genera of ferns in Jamaica possess endemic species ; and one 

 genus, Enterosora, with a single species, has been found only in 

 one other locality, viz., on Mt. Roraima, British Guiana. This 

 feature of Jamaica ferns renders the business of collecting there 

 something more than a mere search for what has been gathered 

 before by previous investigators. There is always the zest that 

 comes from a possibility of procuring some'" species that is still 

 new to science, as Wilson and Nock and Sherring and Jenman 

 have done. The possibilities seem to be by no means exhausted; 

 and I have no doubt that if what is known as " The Cockpit 

 country "—comprising something like one hundred square miles 

 — ever comes to be thoroughly explored and investigated, it will 

 yield a substantial addition to the new species of the island. 



BOTRYCHIUfl TERNATUM SWZ., AND ITS VARIETIES. 



rp HE notes on these plants in the April Bulletin contain so 



much that is, by implication, misleading, that I am led to 



offer some comments in reply. One not well acquainted 

 with the Botrychiums and their history, might very naturally 

 infer from the statements made in the notes alluded to, that they 

 had never received more than a superficial investigation, and 

 that the whole genus was sadly in need of revision. With this 

 view I can have no sympathy whatever, as it has no grounds to 

 rest upon, exactly the contrary being true. I regret very much 



