EDITORIAL 



After two years experience as a department of this 

 THE journal, the Bryclogist feels confident that it can 



BRYOLOGIST go it alone, and this month begins its career as an 



independent publication. At the same time our 

 connection with it ceases, the entire stock and good will having 

 been sold to its editor, Dr. A. J. Grout, who, with Mrs. Annie 

 Morrill Smith as associate, will continue its publication. The new 

 owners are well equipped for making the Bryologist an attractive 

 and successful journal, and have our best wishes for its continued 

 prosperity. The space left vacant by the removal of the Bryolo- 

 gist will, in future, be devoted to ferns. 



* 



In an early number of The Fern Bulletin, Mr. B. 

 A FERN D. Gilbert alluded to the Island of Jamaica as 



PARADISE "the fern lover's paradise," and not without reason. 



Its peculiar topography makes it the richest of all 

 the West Indies in ferns and fern allies. Nearly five hundred 

 species are already known to grow there, and the chances of find- 

 ing still others are by no means rare, since many parts are yet 

 little explored, botanically. The editor of this journal has re- 

 signed his position at the New York Botanical Garden and expects 

 to devote the next few months to collecting both flowering plants 

 and ferns in this region. Sets of these will be for sale at the 

 usual rates. All correspondence regarding them, as well as letters 

 to the editor, should now be addressed to Binghamton, N. Y. 



# * 



There is a tendency among thoughtless persons to 

 MASSACHU- apply the name of Massachusetts shield fern to that 

 SETTS SHIELD- last discovered of our Dryopterids— simulata. The 

 FERN sole reason for this seems to be that a gentleman 



from Massachusetts named the species. Although 

 it does not seem to be generally known, the fern was first found 

 in New Hampshire. Ever since its discovery new stations for it 

 have multiplied until it is known to range from Maine to Virginia 

 and the Indian Territory, and may yet prove to be common in all 

 the northern States. There is at least some slight excuse for 

 calling a fern for a State when such a common name is a transla- 

 tion of the specific one; but Massachusetts shield-fern has not this 

 excuse for existing and should be dropped from our lists, or rather 

 refused a place upon them. 



