ASPLENIUM MUTICUM. 



By B. D. Gilbert. 



This new species, which was first published in The American 

 Botanist for May, occurs in Middle Florida, the State which con- 

 tains so many ferns that are found nowhere else in the United 

 States. My attention was called to it by the mention made of it 

 in The Torre y Bulletin for April, 1879. by Prof. D. C. Eaton. 

 In one of his papers on ''New and Little Known Ferns of the 

 United States," he spoke of a fine lot of specimens sent to him 

 from Ocala, Fla., by Capt. J. Donnell Smith. "With these," he 

 said, "are a few specimens of A. Trichomanes, with large, oblong 

 pinnae, much as in specimens from Bermuda and Tropical Ameri- 

 ca." I had collected the fern in Bermuda in 1898, long before 

 I noticed this reference to it, and although Governor Lefroy, in 

 his "Botany of Bermuda," listed it as A. Trichomanes, I saw that 

 it could not be the usual form of that species; and in my "Re- 

 vision of the Bermuda Ferns," I adopted Sir William Hooker's 

 view and published it as A. Trichomanes var. majus Mett. When 

 I chanced upon Professor Eaton's statement, however, I was 

 not satisfied with Hooker's determination. I then thought it 

 might be A. Anceps Solander. as the scarious edges are quite 

 noticeable in the Bermuda specimens. But I had not yet seen 

 any of the Florida specimens. A request sent to Captain Smith 

 that he would loan me his examples of A. Trichomanes from 

 Florida, brought the statement that he did not remember having 

 obtained any in that State or having sent any to Professor Eaton. 

 So the matter was left in abeyance until I could go to Florida 

 and procure it myself. Last spring, being in St. Augustine, I 

 ran down to Ocala and spent three days there for the express 

 purpose of gathering this species. I found it growing on lime- 

 stone rocks, sometimes on an outcrop of the roadside, but more 

 often at what are called "sink holes." The finest growth was at 

 one of these pools, about three miles from Ocala, deep in the 

 woods and away from any traveled road. I was taken to this 

 spot by a negro called "July" Brown, who was familiar with the 

 woods and had hunted 'possum in them hundreds of nights. The 

 water lay at the foot of a slope which rose quite suddenly behind 



