FERN BULLETIN. 



A QUARTERLY DEVOTED TO FERNS. 



Official Organ of the Linnaean Fern Chapter* 



WILLARD N. CLUTE, Editor. 



THE FERN BULLETIN CO., Publishers, Binchamton, N. Y. 



Subscriptions, fifty cents per annum. 



Advertising Rates given upon application. 



Articles upon any subject in fern study solicited. 



Communications intended tor the editor should be addressed to IVillard 

 N. Clute, Herbarium of Columbia University, New York City. 



Entered at the postoffice. Binghamton, N. Y., as second-class mail matter. 



The friends of this journal who have worked so earnestly for 

 its success will doubtless be glad to know that it now has a cir- 

 culation that places it abreast of the more prominent botanical 

 publications. In accordance with this growth, arrangements 

 have been made to add four pages to each issue of Volume VI. 

 These pages will be devoted to the mosses, under the editorship 

 of Dr. A. J. Grout. Notes or queries of general interest relating 

 to this subject, may be directed to him in care of the editor of 

 the Bulletin. 



Our thanks are due Mr. Charles T. Druery for a copy of his 

 interesting volume, " Choice British Ferns." In this book a view 

 of fern study is presented which is doubtless quite novel to Amer- 

 ican students. So little attention is given to fern ''sports "on 

 this side of the Atlantic, that a volume devoted almost wholly to 

 an enumeration and description of such forms is both curious 

 and interesting. More than three hundred different varieties of 

 the British fern- flora are recorded, the Hart's- tongue (Scolopen- 

 drium ) alone having upwards of sixty forms to its credit. The 

 numerous branching, tufted, crested and lobed forms of the lat- 

 ter species are all the more remarkable from the fact that fronds 

 of this fern are ordinarily lanceolate linear in outline with entire 

 margins. Spores from these variable forms are capable of devel- 

 oping plants like the parent or even surpassing it in fantastic ab- 

 errations. The cultivation of these forms receives much atten- 

 tion in England, and our American readers would doubtless find 

 considerable interest and amusement in assisting the tendency to 

 variation in their own ferns. 



