dry and brown. In the hoods of the indusia there was still an 

 abundance of unbroken eporanges. A month later, April 29, 

 when the new shoots were noticed as just appearing, the old leaf- 

 lets — veterans of a hundred freezing nights — were commencing to 

 look a trifle sallow and some were shriveling and blackening about 

 the edges. As with the traveler in the fable, over whom the ele- 

 ments strove for supremacy, the sun's hot beams were subduing 

 this fern which the winter's bitterness had been powerless to spoil. 



Two weeks later, on May 13, the crosiers had lengthened out 

 several inches and were beginning to show pinnules— kidney- 

 shaped in outline, the edges revolute and with shallow lobings 

 that marked the early stages of the "fingers" of the mature leaf- 

 lets. The accompanying sketch illustrates the forms of the early 

 foliage. It is drawn from the young fronds of a plant which was 

 brought into the house in November, potted in its native sand and 

 sphagnum and given a little trellis to twine upon. Thus humored, 

 it kept alive and served through the winter as a beautiful and in- 

 teresting ornament in a window-seat, putting up in March (sev- 

 eral weeks earlier than the out of-door plants) the new fronds of 

 the season. 



Philadelphia. 



FERNS AND ALLIES AT UNALASKA AND NOME CITY. 



By J. B. Flett. 



IT was my good fortune to visit Lnalaska June 15-20 last sum- 

 mer, and although the season was too early for mature ferns, 

 judging from the manner in which they were coming up I 

 should say that Unalaska must be a "fern-lover's paradise." 

 They were everywhere — in grassy places, on the rocks, among 

 heather and Lycopodiums, on the hills and in the valleys. 



I collected Polypodium vulgare occidentale near the settle- 

 ment of Dutch Harbor, where it was growing very abundantly. 

 It was also observed on crags along the seashore. It differed 

 from our Washington form in texture and shape, having some re- 

 semblance to P. Califor7iicum. I am inclined to believe tint if 

 all the forms were properly classified there would be many well- 

 defined varieties. The Washington form is confined to the rocky 

 summits of high mountains. 



Asplenium cyclosorum was just unfolding. It was very 

 abundant in grassy places at sea -level. In the same stage of de- 



