-6 4 - 



it a good species. Mr. Clute, who gathered it in association with 

 Poly stic hum platyphyllum Willd., says that he could see no inter- 

 grading of these two, and that was my own experience in 1895. 

 Its distinguishing points are the long, narrow, slender, frond, as 

 indicated in the specific name, the delicate texture, the fact that 

 two-thirds of the frond is simply pinnate, the distinctly stalked 

 pinnae and the reflexed scales. Frequently there is a bud on the 

 rachis or on the stipe of one of the pinnae one or two inches from 

 the tip of the frond, which shows a tendency in this species to be 

 gemniferous. 



Mr. G. S. Jenman in his " Ferns of Jamaica," mentions this 

 form under Aspidium aculeatum as "the smallest state of all, 

 (which) is 1-1*4 in. wide and bipinnate only at the base." But 

 both texture and form seem to me to separate it distinctly from 

 Aspidium aculeatum, even if the uniformly non-indusiate sori 

 did not. 



Gathered at Clyde River, alt. 3,000 feet, by Clute, in 1900, 

 No. 139, and at Mandeville, by Gilbert, in 1895. 



A LIST OF THE FERNWORTS COLLECTED 

 IN JAMAICA 



By Willard N. Clute. 



CCORDING to Jenman's work on the ferns, the island of 



Jamaica has 489 species of ferns and 27 of the allies, or 



about one fernwort for every four flowering plants. This 

 makes it one of the richest localities in the world of ferns, but 

 owing to the very local distribution of many species a complete 

 collection is practically impossible. In the number above men- 

 tioned are included numerous species which have been collected 

 only once, or have been referred to the island upon the authority 

 of specimens so labeled in Herbaria, although not seen in a fresh 

 state by modern botanists. The number of species which a col- 

 lector might secure by visiting such parts of the island as are easily 

 accessible is probably not far from four hundred. In my stay of 

 two months last winter, during which many flowering plants, 

 also, were collected, I was able to secure about 250 species. 

 Later I hope to mention more fully some of the experiences of 

 fern collecting in Jamaica, but at present it seems expedient to 

 publish the list of fernworts collected with such notes as seem 

 pertinent. In distributing my plants, they were labeled to agree 



