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later in Fenner, New York, where the plants both grow in a low 

 cedar swamp; and at a still later period in Baldwinsville, New 

 York, where B. neglectum grows in great profusion, and where I 

 was able to study it, in the company of the veteran fern student 

 of Central New York, Rev. W. M. Beauchamp, companion of 

 many a delightful tramp. As to the so-called B. matricariafo- 

 lium of Europe (Mr. Davenport fails to notice the fact that the 

 highest European "authorities" have abandoned this name for 

 an earlier, shorter, and fortunately more appropriate one), I 

 have for years been familiar with it in the herbarium, with the 

 growing conviction that it was a different plant from ours. I have 

 seen abundant representatives of this plant in public and private 

 herbaria in England, Germany and France, and in 189S I had the 

 pleasure of seeing it growing on its native heath on Schneekopf 

 in Thiiringen, when my convictions became conclusions — the 

 plants were surely different. It may yet be possible that B. neg- 

 lectum Wood, is also a member of the European flora (one or 

 two of Milde's later figures suggest this and. there is other evi- 

 dence) ; this would not be strange, for both B. simplex and 

 B. Virginianum, once thought to be exclusively American, have 

 been found in Europe. But that the American plant is not the 

 ordinary European species which the "authorities" have called 

 B. tnatricaricefoliutn is to me as certain as was my earlier con • 

 elusion that our plant was distinct from B. lanceolatum. The 

 ordinray European plant is much more closely allied to Mr. 

 Coville's B. pumicola so beautifully figured, in a recent number 

 of the Bulletin of the Torrey Club. Habit and structure, there- 

 fore, in addition to geography, combine to separate the American 

 plant. Still after twenty- five years of study afield and in the 

 best herbaria of two continents, Mr. Davenport regards me 

 "rash," which is only a synonym of " hasty;" and without having 

 seen the European plant in life, without having seen very much 

 material now deposited beyond the ten- mile limit from the gilded 

 dome of the Boston State House, he has only to send to Mr. Green- 

 man, at Berlin, for a few specimens with which to support his 

 previously established conclusions. Having seen the scraps of 

 American material in so many cases besides the present one, on 

 which European botanists have sagely based their conclusions, their 

 right to be placed on a pedestal as "authorities" for Americans 

 to bow down to worship has suffered in some cases a total 

 collapse. In any case, why stop with Luerssen ? Why not go 



