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material, for I feel sure that the more material he has the 

 stronger he will find the evidence against his present views to be. 

 The species exhibits the most astonishing variations, and what is 

 most remarkable is the duplication of these variations in the va- 

 riety dissectum, specimens of which may be found showing the 

 lunate segments of lunarioides, the oblique segments of obliquum, 

 and the obtuse, or even rounded segments of the European forms 

 of ternatum itself, with every possible degree of incision of the 

 margins from the simplest dissection to the deepest laciniated 

 divisions of the form millefolium. 



Dr. Underwood has sent to me a portion of a frond from the 

 New York form which he thinks is distinct from the New Eng- 

 land forms of dissectum, but I find, as I expected, for I have 

 long been familiar with it, that it is only a finely laciniated form 

 of dissectum, which is frequently collected in New England and 

 elsewhere. I have collected it many times, and received it from 

 others, and there are specimens from Essex county. Mass., col- 

 lected by John Robinson, in the Davenport Herbarium ( Mass. 

 Hort. Society ) that match it exactly. B. dissectum Sprengel, 

 was well disposed of by John Milde, who gave Sprengel's origi- 

 nal description verbatim in the body of bis own monograph. It 

 connects lunarioides and obliquum with typical ternatum' 

 through innumerable intergrading variations, and the medium of 

 its bud, spores and structural characters. 



I have in Botanical Gazette f 1. c) alluded to one of Mrs- 

 Barnes' North Woods (N. Y.) plants as resembling lunarioides, 

 but I might have gone further. I have five specimens from Mrs. 

 Barnes mounted on the same sheet with other specimens of ter- 

 natum that show a varying length of stalk to the sterile division, 

 the longest being scarcely longtr than in Chapman's Florida 

 specimen of lunarioides in the Gray Herbarium, and with small, 

 rounded segments, some of which are quite lunate in form. These 

 plants if collected in Alabama would not be considered in any 

 way distinct from lunarioides, but here, on account of their sur- 

 roundings I have preferred to keep them with my series of terna- 

 tum forms, though I am not sure that I would not be justified in 

 mounting them separately and labeling them lunarioides, as there 

 is no difference whatever in their buds and spores. Milde men- 

 tioned seeing similar specimens from Lapland, and this shows 

 the difficulty of attempting to separate the different varieties 

 into distinct species. 



