-58- 



In regard to the Pellaea : "You may be able to make it grow, 

 : 5 till I think you will find it difficult to do so, for it seems to love 

 to squeeze itself in the dry crevices of rocks. In some cases I 

 was obliged to break or pull apart the rocks before I could up- 

 root the fern, and as a rule those who have tried to domesticate 

 this fern have failed." 



For a year or so it grew nicely in the same crock with 

 Scolopendrium, producing some very beautiful fronds. As it was 

 becoming crowded, it was given a small flower-pot of its own, 

 but it died a year or so after. I have since found this fern, very 

 rarely, about the southernmost end of Lake Champlain, on dry 

 rocks. 



Vaughns, N. Y. 



PELLAEA ATROPURPUREA IN A STRANGE PLACE. 



- By A. Vincent Osmun. 



In Tolland county, Connecticut, in the town of Bolton, there 

 is a great outcropping of rock, mostly mica schist, with occasion- 

 ally transverse veins of limestone and quartz. It is not only the 

 geologist who finds this an alluring place, for the botanist, es- 

 pecially the fern lover, will find here some specimens not common 

 in Eastern Connecticut, at least. 



In the early part of last September, while a friend and I were 

 collecting, we found the Walking leaf (Camptosorus rhizo- 

 phyllus) growing in luxuriant patches both on the mica schist and 

 on the limestone. It seemed to be doing equally well on each. 



Pellaea atropurpurea, which also is found scattered over the 

 face of this cliff, was growing with apparently the same degree 

 of vigor on mica schist and in the calcareous veins. But that 

 which more especially attracted our attention was the peculiar 

 place in which we found two plants of Pellaea growing. It was 

 where the cliff terminated at one end in a few big boulders. At 

 the foot of a short slope which ran from the base of one of these 

 boulders, in a position where dislodged plants could not possibly 

 strike in falling, two perfectly healthy plants of Pellaea, both with 

 fronds from ten to fourteen inches long, were firmly rooted in the 

 clayey soil. A scattering growth of poverty grass, Andropogon 

 furcatus, surrounded the plants. 



