—74— 



— Mr. B. D. Gilbert, Clayville, N. Y., reports encouraging pro- 

 gress in his study of Asplenium Filix-f oemina and its varieties. 

 Thus far he has received for study more than six hundred speci- 

 mens of this fern, and has noted some twenty varieties not before 

 reported from America. Every fern student who has or finds any 

 peculiar forms of this species during the present season, should 

 send them to Mr. Gilbert. He will be glad to name them and re- 

 turn them to their owner after study, or will give good exchange 

 for them. 



BOOK NEWS* 



A special report of the Fern Chapter containing the papers 

 presented at the meeting in Boston last August under the Chap- 

 ter's auspices, has recently appeared.* The titles of the papers 

 follow: •* Abnormal forms and hybridity in ferns," "An interest- 

 ing variety of Osmunda Claytoniana" "Notes on the ferns of the 

 Ural and Caucasus mountains," "On the distribution of some 

 Eastern American ferns," "On the genera of ferns; a study in 

 the genus Aspidiese," "Notes on a peculiar Botrychium," and a 

 " Study of Ophioglossum." Those who were unable to be present 

 at the Boston meeting will welcome this opportunity to secure the 

 papers in convenient form'for study. The authors of the papers 

 are all prominent fern students, which make these notes worth 

 preserving. The publication of special reports is a new departure 

 for the Fern Chapter, but one that we hope to see continued, 

 Several members are now at work on important problems in fern 

 study, and the Chapter can find a new field of usefulness in the 

 publication of the results of these studies. 



Since it became known that Mrs. Parsons was preparing a 

 work on the ferns, lovers of these plants have impatiently awaited 

 the completion of the volume, which they hoped would be more 

 easily understood than the average text book. In " How to Know 

 the Ferns "f they are not likely to be disappointed. In scope the 

 book is modelled closely after the author's volume, "How to 

 Know the Wild Flowers," and is well illustrated, containing 

 seventy seven illustrations, forty seven of which are full page 

 plates. Among the chapters may be mentioned "Ferns as a 



*Papers presented at the Boston meeting under the auspices of the 

 Linnaean Fern Chapter, August 24, i8q8. Binghamton, N. Y.; Willard N. 

 Clute & Co. 12-mo., 32 pp., price 25 cents. 



t" How to Know the Ferns," by Frances Theodora Parsons, New York; 

 Charles Scribner's Sons, i8gq. 12-mo., 212 pp., price $1.50. 



