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valuable part of a fern literature well worthy of preservation. 

 But all this was soon to be changed. The lamented Williamson, 

 whose interpretations of fern life, especially in his exquisite 

 "Fern Etchings," came like an inspiration, was the pioneer of 

 this movement, although simultaneously the larger and more 

 comprehensive work of Prof. Daniel Cady Eaton, was being 

 issued to subscribers in parts, and the first volume was published 

 in 1879. Previous to the publication of his fern books John 

 Williamson published a "List of Thirty-one Kentucky Ferns," in 

 the Catalogue of the Louisville Industrial Exposition for 1875, 

 and in the Bulletin of the Torrcy Botanical Club for October, 

 1879, gave an account of his finding Scolopcndrium in Tennessee. 

 The period covered by the seventies is memorable on account of 

 the impetus given to fern literature in this country. Besides his 

 larger work on the "Ferns of North America," Prof. Eaton pub- 

 lished in Torrcy Bulletin a series of valuable notes on "New and 

 Little Known Ferns of the United States," extending from 

 March, 1873, well into the eighties, also "Ferns of the South- 

 west," in Lieut. Wheeler's Report for 1877, and prepared for 

 publication in Vol. II of the "Botany of California," which was 

 published in 1880, his elaboration of the ferns of California. He 

 also published in Canadian Naturalist for March, 1870, some 

 critical observations on some American ferns in the Herbaria of 

 Linne and Michaux, that were collected or named by those early 

 botanists. In 1878 Prof. John Robinson's admirable Hand Book 

 on "Ferns in Their Homes and Ours" appeared and has proved 

 to be an invaluable guide to the collection and cultivation of 

 native ferns. 



My own contributions to this period of our fern history have 

 been monographs on "Botrychium simplex" in 1877, "Vernation 

 in Botrychia" in Torrcy Bulletin, January. 1878, and "Aspidium 

 spinulosum and its Varieties" in American Naturalist. November, 

 1878. Also a descriptive account of the "Ferns of Massachu- 

 setts," in a series of articles on the "Flora of Medford," in Med- 

 ford Chronicle, 1875-6, and in 1879, a "Descriptive Catalogue" of 

 the ferns then in the "Davenport Herbarium" of the Massa- 

 1875 a "Catalogue of North American Ferns" in the Herbarium 

 chusetts Horticultural Society. During this period I published in 



