THE FERN BULLETIN 



37 



quently mentioned in his letters a very broad form of 

 Boottii, and once spoke of finding several sheets of it in 

 the Gray Herbarium among the Clintonianums, and 

 again he says, "Gilbert makes it the type of his var. 

 multi-flora" Later I sent Mr. Eaton a duplicate of 

 what I have recently determined to be N. Clintonianum 

 X intermedium and he identified it as AT. Boottii var. 

 multiflora Gilbert. I have seen heavily fruited speci- 

 mens labelled "var. multiflora" which were not the 

 Clintonianutn hybrid, but I have not seen any of Gil- 

 bert's material. 



Another interesting question concerns the position 

 of N. thelypteris X. noveboracense , and N. simulatum 

 in the genus. Although A', thelypteris was common in 

 the locality just described, no hybrid of that species 

 was found and as far as I know none has ever been 

 reported. This adds a little emphasis to the fact, which 

 every observer of the group must appreciate, that the 

 evergreen Xephrodiums bear to each other an entirely 

 different relationship from that which they bear to the 

 herbaceous Xephrodiums. (See Davenport in Rho- 

 dora Vol. IV. page 10.) N. Clintonianutn is getting to 

 be pretty generally accepted as a species, and judging 

 by the ease with which its hybrids are recognized N. 

 spiuulosum intermedium deserves the same considera- 

 tion. Then how can we do less than to make a genus 

 or at least a sub-genus distinction between those spe- 

 cies and the thelypteris group? 



One question more. There are two distinct forms 

 commonly called N. spiuulosum dilatatum, one is col- 

 lected at high elevations, the other in swamps or wet 

 woods. I call them the swamp form and the mountain 

 form. The mountain form is probably the true dilata- 

 tum. It is well shown in Waters' Ferns, page 220. 



