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thrive— the fronds of Pellaea andromedaefolia sometimes measur- 

 ing sixteen inches in length. After being obliged for two years 

 to limit my fern collections to these species, at last increasing 

 strength allowed me to walk up the canon one June morning, as 

 far as the Falls. After resting there in the most beautiful spot I 

 have seen in Southern California, I continued my hunt for ferns. 

 One nice plant of Cheilanthes Californica rewarded me. It was 

 growing in a tiny crevice of a rock, where it was shaded half the 

 day, and where the water was always within at least ten feet of 

 it. I saw the season was too far advanced, for all the other ferns 

 found were crisp and brown. Last winter, not finding opportu- 

 nity to collect there myself, 1 asked a friend to go for me. March 

 13th was the day selected, the result being the specimens of 

 Cheilanthes Californica which it has given me pleasure to offer to 

 our Chapter. — Mrs. Julia E. Campbell, Long Beach, Calif. 



THE COMflON POLYPODY. 



ONE of the commonest ferns about Philadelphia is the rock 

 polypody. Its favorite haunt seems to be on ledges of 

 rock and the flat tops of shaded boulders, though some- 

 times we find it growing about the roots of trees and mildly 

 essaying to climb their trunks. Its vitality is something remark- 

 able. In very dry times in summer and fall the fronds dry up 

 and look as though it was all over with them, but a little wet 

 weather freshens them up directly, and they look as stout as ever. 

 These withered fronds, gathered and brought home, will lose all 

 their dryness over night, if steeped in cold water, and be bright 

 and stiff in the morning. So, too, in winter, the fronds curl up 

 aDd look decidedly dejected, but come around all right again 

 with the spring. It is a very cheerful little fern to me, and I 

 think an intimate acquaintance with it might be something of a 

 tonic to all of us in times of adversity. — C. F. Saunders. 



TRICHOMANES PETERSII. 



THE rarest fern to find, however, even when you are near its 

 station, is the elegant Trichomanes Petersii. Within the 

 section that contains the type locality it took two days of 

 very earnest search to find it. From the description of the orig- 

 inal station, I had expected to find it on rocks wet with the spray 

 of waterfalls, but all such over-moist localities yielded no re- 



