-8o- 



and wrote to Mr. E. N. Reasoner for proof as to their origin, 

 telling him of their identity. He replied that, of course, he could 

 not swear they came from Key Largo, but supposed they did, as 

 they had received a climbing fern from there. I was surprised 

 later in looking over a friend's collection that Mr. Reasoner, after 

 dropping it from his catalogue for several years, was still selling 

 the same thing for P. Swartzii. It was on some plants from the 

 same lot that Mr. Ferriss based his remarks at St. Louis. In 

 November, 1903, I saw Reasoner \s collector in Key Largo. He 

 hardly knew what a fern was, and had never seen one answer- 

 ing to the description. In May, 1904, I had the pleasure of meet- 

 ing Mr. Reasoner, who gave me the probable history of the error. 



Mr. Pliny Reasoner, on a trip to Key Largo, collected Poly- 

 podium Swartzii and sent it home. This eventually died and the 

 label in some way got transferred to the Asplenium. At the 

 time I wrote Mr. Reasoner as to the identity of the plant he had, 

 as he thought, sold it all out. A few years later enough had 

 developed to again list. He had by this time forgotten about my 

 letter and again listed it as P. Swartzii. This, it appears to me, 

 proves satisfactorily that the record of its being naturalized on 

 Key Largo is based on an error. — A. A. Baton, The Ames Bo- 

 tanical Laboratory, N. Boston, Mass. 



SOME RARE FERNS OF CENTRAL NEW JERSEY. 



By Homer D. House. 



The fact that many of our Eastern ferns which we con- 

 sider scarce are here and there locally abundant, needs no argu- 

 ment in its support. Nearly all sections of the country have a 

 greater or lesser number of the "local plants" and Central New 

 Jersey is no exception to this. The sandy, "pine-barren" region 

 extends northward to within three or four miles of New Bruns- 

 wick and ends there very abruptly. For ten miles north of here 

 the soil is chiefly red shale or rich loam. North of Bound 

 Brook and Plainfield begins the trap-rock hills of the Orange 

 mountains. 



