— SS— 



buds that normally would be sterile, and a partial metamorphosis 

 results. In some years and localities the number of specimens is 

 very great; again, some localities are prone to produce it, a few- 

 being found every year. A clay loam seems to favor it, but it is 

 often found spontaneous with no apparent, cause. 



9. Polys tacky on. Ordinary sterile stems with tips of branches 

 ending in spikelets. Rare. I have found but few of these. They 

 may bear from 2-15 spikelets. The branches are very short, and 

 all I have seen are small, about three inches tall ; with the variety 

 campesire. 



MONSTROSITIES. 



These often occur, mostly in the fertile stem. Many of them, 

 such as proliferous points, branches in the middle of the spike, etc., 

 have been noticed in the foregoing remarks. I have seen two 

 others that deserve notice. One is a normal fertile stem with two 

 spikes, one above the other on a short internode. The other is 

 also a fertile stem, divided to near the middle and bearing a spike 

 on each part. 



[Mr. Eaton has prepared sets of eight of the varieties here 

 treated, which will be distributed only to members of the Fern 

 Chapter and subscribers and exchanges of The Fern Bulletin 

 upon receipt of forty cents to pay for postage and packing. The 

 sets will not be divided. In subsequent numbers all the other 

 species in North America will be similarly treated. Address all 

 communications to Alvah A. Eaton, Seabrook, N. H.] 



NOTES ON SOME SOUTH FLORIDA FERNS. 



By Charles Louis Pollard. 



I NOTICE in the current number of The Fern Bulletin a sug- 

 gestion from Mr. B. D. Gilbert that our southern botanists 

 should ascertain some definite stations for Acrostichum 

 lomarioides in Florida. Although not strictly a " southern 

 botanist," I am able to contribute positive information as to one 

 station, for I discovered the fern a year ago growing abundantly 

 near the village of Newport on Key Largo, south of Biscayne 

 Bay. It was confined to a broad but shallow sink-hole in a clear- 

 ing, forming a thicket so dense as to exclude all other vegetation. 

 The soil was, of course, strongly alkaline, consisting of surface 

 humus mixed with decaying coral rock; it may also have been 

 slightly saline, as all the natural springs on these islands are more 

 or less brackish. The characters separating this species from A. 



