THE FERX BULLETIN 



117 



Davenport's variety Hortonac the pinnae are very 

 broad for their length and must be described as pin- 

 natifid or nearly twice pinnate rather than serrate. It 

 is the most extensively dissected form yet discovered 

 and a very handsome and decorative fern. Between 

 the extremes marked out by Miller's serratum and 

 Davenport's Hortonac there is room for much varia- 

 tion and such forms are frequently found. Pinnae from 

 two different fronds of this kind found by W. A. Poy- 

 ser in Montgomery County, Pa. are here illustrated. 

 These are certainly not the form Hortonac nor yet the 

 form serratum. Whether they have been described or 

 not. depends upon specimens to which the present 

 writer has not access. It is known, however, that E. 

 C. Howe once named a form of this fern Asplenium 

 ebeneum variety incisum and this has been seized upon 

 as a pretext for substituting- incisum for Hortonac in 

 the name of the most deeply cut form. It is possible, 

 however, that incisum more nearly represents the form 

 here illustrated in which case Hortonac ought to have 

 good standing in court. 



A few years ago, some of the more inconoclastic fern 

 students dug up the specific name platyncnron which 

 they wished substituted for the more appropriate name 

 of ebcrcuin. This was not a new discovery, however. 

 In 1878, D. C. Eaton called attention to it in his 'Terns 

 of North America" in these words: "Although the 

 Linnaean name for the present species is unquestion- 

 ably the oldest, it is scarcelv probable that those 

 authors who are disposed to insist upon an inflexible 

 law of priority will attempt to replace the name which 

 has been accented by nearly all botanists for nearly a 

 century by one so utterly inappropriate as platyncnron." 

 All of which shows how much better Eaton knew ferns 

 than fern students. 



