SOME RARE VERMONT FERNS. 



By Willard W. Eggleston. 



VERMONT is a good field for the fern enthusiast, for we have 

 a number of rare ones and are still finding more. Woodsia 

 glabella, the plant which started C. G. Pringle in his botan- 

 ical wanderings, and was found by him on a number of mountains 

 in northern Vermont, has also been discovered by F. A. Balch in 

 Queeche Gulf in central-eastern Vermont, at an altitude of not 

 over 600 feet. This locality must be something similar to the Little 

 Falls, N. Y., situation, where it was first found by Dr. Vasey. 



One of the rarest ferns in the east, Asplenium trichomanes 

 mcisum, has been found in Norwich by Prof. H. G. Jessup. 

 Dryopteris fragrans was found by the writer in Underhill Notch 

 in 1894; but the greatest surprise he has had in the fern line was 

 the discovery, in company with G. H. Ross, in July, 1898, of this 

 fern in Hubbardton, in the Tacomic range of mountains, at an 

 elevation of not over 1,200 feet. The Tacomic range is the range 

 in Vermont west of the Green mountains, the particular locality, 

 in fact, in which southern and western plants extend much farther 

 north and east — just the last place to expect Arctic or boreal 

 plants. 



In August last Ross brought in a Rutland specimen of 

 Asplenium ebenoides. This fern has been found but once before, 

 1 believe, in New England (in Connecticut), many years ago. In 

 the Rutland locality there was but one plant with the usual accom- 

 paniment of Asple?iinm platyneuron and Camptosorus rhizo- 

 phyllus. 



Last year was a particularly favorable year for rock ferns. 

 The writer found more of that extremely rare fern, Woodsia 

 alpina, in Smuggler's Notch, Mt. Mansfield, than he had ever seen 

 before, simply because it had a chance for growth in dry places, 

 its best location. In North Pownal he found Pellcea atropurpurea, 

 twenty inches high, and lots of Asplenium Rut a-mur aria. These 

 last two are quite common in western Vermont, although local. 

 In the rock cut of the Rutland Railroad in Mt. Holly we saw this 

 year quantities of Pellcea Stelleri, four or five inches high. 



Vermont has had one station for Woodwardia Virginica since 

 Dr. J. W. Robbins found it at Colchester Pond in 1829. This 

 year it has been found at a pond in Randolph, in eastern Vermont. 



