38 



THE FERN BULLETIN 



The swamp form is perhaps a rather extreme form of 

 the species. I have a swamp dilatatum with glandular 

 indusia, collected in Lowman, N. Y. I had labeled it 

 A', spinulosum fructuosum Gilbert. I now believe it 

 to be a spinulosum X intermedium hybrid. I have not 

 seen Gilbert's material but from the localities eiven I 

 judge that his specimens were collected on low ground ; 

 and he says — ''not as glandulose as var. intermedium/' 



I shall look with interest for data and suggestions 

 from fern students bearing on any of these questions. 



Elmira, N. Y. 



COLLECTING IN THE EVERGLADES. 



By Charles T. Simpson. 



Late in the Autumn of 1903 A. A. Eaton, John Soar 

 and Charles F. Simpson the well known writer on 

 mollusks, made a collecting trip to Southern Florida. 

 The following letter was written to a friend and not in- 

 tended for publication but it gives a more vivid im- 

 pression of botanizing in that part of the world than 

 pages of the usual perfunctory description and we have 

 accordingly obtained permission to publish it. 



"Eaton, Soar and I returned home from a collect- 

 ing trip as far as Long Key, in the Everglades, a week 

 ago. I have not had life enough to write to you since, 

 though I sent a package of ferns by mail, and a postal 

 card. We had a terribly hard trip following our 

 former road to near the end of the Homestead settle^ 

 ment and then taking a new road broken by the engin- 

 eers of the East Coast Railroad, to haul supplies over. 



For eleven or twelve miles there is no settlement, an 

 awful desolate country without a cap full of soil. 

 Nothing but the old coral reef, evolved into sharp 



