THE FERN BULLETIN 



been exhausted both in species and varieties the search 

 for these fairy changelings may continue with the 

 confident expectation of finding at least occasionally 

 a new form ; and it is quite possible for one who has 

 the desire and something less than eternal patience to 

 raise them in pots of moist mold from spores, but \ 

 fancy very few of the millions of spores produced 

 ever develop and fewer still reach maturity, for out 

 of forty-six prothalli that I started in a pot only two 

 produced fronds and they were short-lived. 

 New Hartford, N. Y. 



RARE FORMS OF FERN WORTS. -XIV. 



Some Variations of Polvpodium. 

 Search any species of plant long enough and we are 

 likely to find variations from the normal. If the 

 species varies in more than one direction we are likely 

 to find our variations falling into distinct groups. This 

 is especially so in the case of the common polypody 

 where we find groups characterized by forked pinnae, 

 'lobed pinnae, or pinnae that are themselves nearly 

 pinnate. When we approach the study of forms, 

 however, we seldom find them distinct and clearly 

 marked. Those of one group insensibly merge into 

 one another. This fact was clearly indicated recently 

 by the receipt of a parcel of some seventy-five fronds 

 of Polypodunn -rulgarc collected by Mrs. A. E. Scoul- 

 lar from a single ledge facing east in Maine. In the 

 lot there was scarcely one that would pass for normal 

 and yet few were distinct enough to be classed as one 

 of the named forms Among the most interesting 

 were those that exhibited one or more ears on the 

 basal pinnae. Although these are all more or less alike 

 three different forms have been singled out for nam- 



