— 10 — 



favorable places, and that Puget Sound is doubtless its northern 

 limit. It seems strange that it should be so vigorous so far north. 

 I am told that it has never been found before outside of California 

 and Arizona. Its discovery here extends its range many hun- 

 dreds of miles to the north where more depauperate forms might 

 be expected.— J. B. Flett, Taeoma, Washi?igton. 



HIS is the species recently separated by Jenman from the 



familiar A. aureum. It is characterized, he states, by 



"its much larger size, numerous crowded fronds, the bar- 

 ren and fertile being uniformly separate— all the pinnae of the one 

 being barren and all of the other fertile — much more sessile leaf- 

 lets (turned transversely with the rachis, the plane to the sky, like 

 the blades of a step-ladder), intestiniform translucent pale-col- 

 ored corpuscles covering the sporangia, which give a pale prui- 

 nose color to the soriferous under -surfaces." I might add that the 

 meshes of venation are much finer, and point more directly toward 

 the edge, and that the costal areoles, instead of lying lengthwise 

 along the midrib, are generally longer the other way and point 

 outward toward the edge. The venation is raised on the under 

 surface and much more distinct than it is in A. aureum, looking 

 honeycombish, as if it were made of whitish-yellow wax, while 

 in A. aureum it is of the same color as the rest of the frond or 

 darker. Jenman gives Bermuda as one of the habitats of this 

 species. The Devonshire marsh, where it grows, lies in the cen- 

 tral valley of the large center island which is known as "the 

 Mainland," and is out of the reach of tide-water. The plants 

 strike every one who sees them as being magnificent in size, 

 reaching far above the head of any man, sometimes to the height 

 of eight or nine feet. Mr. Jenman says "this is the plant figured 

 in Eaton, Ferns N. Am., for A. aureum, though true aureum 

 is also found in Florida. It ranges from Florida and the Bahamas 

 down through the West Indies and Guianas to the Brazils." This 

 therefore adds another species to the ferns of our own country. 

 Eaton figures only the fertile frond, but shows a small section of 

 it with the sporangia removed, thus disclosing the venation. This 

 is represented as running rather more oblique to the rachis than it 

 does in A. lomaroides, but in other respects the figure is fairly 

 good. It is taken from an Indian River specimen, where, he tells 



A FERN NEW TO THE UNITED STATES. 



