— 102 — 



For the benefit of such an investigation the writer is indebted 

 to Mr. W. F. Wight, who in the course of his studies abroad 

 in 1903 kindly compared with the types a series of specimens 

 from the U. S. National Herbarium. 



Hooker's description of P. vulgar e occidentale reads as fol- 

 lows : " Frondis laciniis acutis acute serratis," with the follow- 

 ing data : " N. W. Am. On rocks and decayed wood, common 

 near the confluence of the Columbia with the sea. Douglas. 

 Sitcha. Mertens (in Herb, nostr.). ***** Mertens' plant 

 from Sitcha, described by Bongard, is identical with the Colum- 

 bian one." The statement that the Columbian and Sitcha plants 

 are identical is substantiated by Mr. Wight's photograph of the 

 types. The print shows plants about intermediate between the 

 common coriaceous Alaskan plant and the ordinary Washington 

 type with long attenuate pinnae. Under these circumstances and 

 .with much material to substantiate such a disposition the writer 

 has little hesitation in giving the name occidentale to the whole 

 series. The synonymy, then, will be as follows : 



POLYPODIUM OCCIDENTALS (Hook.) 



Polypodium vulgare L. var. Spreng. Syst. Veg. 4 : 52. 1827. — 

 Bongard, Mem. Acad. Petersb. Vi. Sci. Math. Phys. Nat. 2: 175. 

 1832. 



Polypodium vulgare occidentale Hook. Fl. Bor. Am. 2: 258. 

 1840. 



Polypodium falcatum Kellogg, Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci. 1 : 220. 

 1854. 



Polypodium glycyrrhiza D. C. Eaton, Am. Journ. Sci. II. 

 22 : 138. 1856. 



As thus delimited the species include plants ranging from 

 California to Alaska, where it seems especially abundant in the 

 Sitka region. It is highly variable, and if intermediate specimens 

 immediately dependent upon habitat for their peculiar features 

 were to be disregarded it would be possible to recognize several 

 forms. There is, in the U. S. National Herbarium, a good series 

 of plants from Washington, collected by Mr. J. B. Flett. Such 

 of these as grew about the roots of trees or upon rocks, and thus 

 more or less exposed, are unmistakably the same as the average 

 Alaskan plant; it is only those which grew in well shaded situ- 

 ations, on rotten logs and in living trees (Flett 2031, 2033), that 



