tain side in the talus and seams of moss covered rocks in com* 

 piny with Selaginella rupestris, a very large form of Crypto- 

 gramma acrostichoides, Cheilanthes gracillima and Pellaa 

 dens a. A forest fire had several years before swept off what 

 timber there was along the mountain, but I do not think that 

 there had ever been much where the ferns grew. The soil would 

 not permit it. The rock was trachyte, with a southwest exposure, 

 — little or no shade, occasionally a bush of Ceanothus velutinus 

 and a manzanita. It grew in radiate tufts, something like 

 D. mufiita, only more erect — very distinctly so— and perhaps a 

 little denser than the type. The leaves are as densely crowded 

 when growing as they appear when pressed. There was no water 

 to be seen anywhere." 



In the particular case mentioned above the visitation of the 

 fire may have been the cause of the fern's variance from what 

 is regarded as typical munttum ; but it seems hardly likely, inso- 

 much as the three companion ferns were nourishing under the 

 same conditions. Moreover, the herbarium material is so ample 

 as to admit of no doubt that this is a generally distributed and 

 fairly common form. The National Herbarium alone contains 

 eleven specimens which are sharply distinct from the type. I am 

 strongly inclined to think that subsequent study will prove it to 

 be a distinct spe:ies. 



PELUEA. GRACILIS IN ILLINOIS. 



By E. J. Hill. 



HAVING found this fern in the valley of the Desplaines 

 river, and once before, in 1874, in that of the Kankakee 

 river, an account of the two stations will be of interest, 

 since they are, as far as I am aware, the only ones recorded for 

 Illinois. Both are quite far south for its range when the low altitude 

 is considered, though it goes somewhat farther south at higher ele- 

 vations. The latitude of Kankakee, near which it was found in one 

 case, 41 , 10 , and the altitude above the sea about 600 feet. That 

 of Lemont, in the valley of the Desplaines, is 41" 40 , and the 

 altitude about 650 feet. In both cases the ferns grew in damp, 

 shaded ravines cut in the limestones by small streams. At Kan- 

 kakee they were on shelves of the limestone in recesses where 

 the layers of rock had been disintegrated along the line of con- 

 tact by atmospheric agencies, so that hollows were left where an 

 upper layer roofed over a cavity, on the floor of which the plants 



