BOTRYCHIUM TERNATUM AND OBLIQUUM. 



By Willard N. Clute. 



In my book "Our r'erns in Their Haunts" I followed Pro- 

 fessor Underwoou, though with some misgivings, in calling our 

 common ternate grape fern Botrychium obliquum. Recently, 

 however, through the kindness of Mr. K. Miyake, I have been 

 supplied with an abundance of the true B. ternatum from widely 

 separated stations in Japan, which thoroughly convince me that 

 our species and the Jananese one are not identical and I shall 

 continue to- write the American species as B. obliquum. The true 

 ternatum differs from the American plant in having thinner, 

 more deeply cut pinnae, with the tips of the pinnules more 

 pointed. Both the pinnae and pinnules of the Japanese plant are 

 on longer stalks and except for the fact that the fruiting portion 

 rises from the base of the plant has much the general appear- 

 ance of Botrychium Virgimanum. A specimen collected at 

 Tokyo in February shows very plainly the effects of the frost, 

 and it is apparently not as hardy as our own species, as might be 

 inferred from its thinner fronds. 



Concerning the name of Botrychium obliquum it may be 

 said that while this is applied to what is very plainly the 

 dominant form of this Botrychium in Eastern America, the first 

 name applied to the plant is Botrychium disscctum, Spreng., he- 

 cause Sprengel happened to get hold of a dissected form and 

 named it first. If, as I firmly believe, the one plant is but a 

 variety of the other, or at least, no more than a sub-species 

 convertible under certain conditions to the normal form, then ac- 

 cording to the rules and regulations Botrychium disscctum 

 Spreng. would become the type and B. obliquum, Muhl. a variety 

 of it. In the same way Mr. Gilbert's B. ternatum Oneidense 

 would become B. disscctum Oneidense, or as I should be in- 

 clined to put it B. d. obliquum f. Oneidense. I would also make 

 B. obliquum intermedium, Underw. a form of B. disscctum 

 obliquum and would write Botrychium occidental, Underw. as 

 a form of Botrychium disscctum, Spreng. 



Fortunately, however, so many botanists will continue to 

 insist upon the specific distinctness of B. obliquum and B. dis- 

 scctum, that these changes are never likely to be made. For 



