—57— 



established. These phenomena are all associated with varietal 

 forms of which my little book, (" Choice British Ferns," Upcott 

 Gill, publisher,) gives an extensive list of British finds, and it is 

 also in this direction that I think your readers should turn their 

 attention since, while many hundreds of truly remarkable varie- 

 ties have been found wild in Great Britain, I have failed to find 

 any record of similar sportivene3s in the States, though most of 

 our species are indigenous there also. A study of this phase of 

 fern-life is so replete with interest that a Bulletin without an al- 

 lusion to it is curiously incomplete. The variations incidentally 

 mentioned in the number before me do not belong to the class I 

 have in view, viz., plumose, cristate, and others of like marked 

 character, and would rank here as sub- varieties only. I should 

 be delighted to correspond with any of your readers who may 

 possess or discover varietal finds of American origin, and to ex- 

 change spores or specimens ( living ) with them. My theory has 

 always been that the same careful and assiduous search among 

 ferns which has yielded so rich a harvest in Britain, will reward 

 the hunter equally anywhere where they are abundant. — Charles 

 T Druery, F. L. S. , Acton, W. London, England. 



THE BRACKEN IN BRITISH COLUMBIA. 



IN certain parts of the world people have been obliged to turn 

 fern students to some extent, in order to protect their fields 

 and pastures from being overgrown with these usually retir- 

 ing plants. The following, abridged from Dr. Fletcher's reply 

 to a farmer in British Columbia, is taken from a Canadian paper. 

 To many it will place our familiar bracken in a new light. 



"Although the brake fern is, as this correspondent describes 

 it, a terrible pest in newly broken land in British Columbia, this 

 is not the case in many parts of Canada. The fern referred to 

 is a variety of the common brake — Pteris aquilina, var. lanugi- 

 nosa. The Brake in Canada, east of the Rocky Mountains, is 

 supposed to be identical with the European form, but I do not 

 think that this is correct, as our Canadian plant is very much 

 smaller and of a slightly different habit. But while our Eastern 

 Canadian form is smaller than the European, the British Colum- 

 bia variety is a giant, sometimes growing tall enough — as I have 

 myself seen near New Westminster — for a man on horseback to 

 take two fronds, one on either side of him, and touch them, over 

 his head. Botanically, the chief difference between the eastern 



