BENJAMIN DAVIS GILBERT. 



HE student of American ferns does not need to be informed 



that Mr. B. D. Gilbert whose portrait appears in this issue, 



is one of the most prominent of our amateur fern students. 

 For a long time the study of ferns has been his avocation, though 

 he has pursued it as energetically as if it were his vocation. Mr. 

 Gilbert was born at Albany, N. Y., Nov. 21, 1835, and graduated 

 at Hamilton College in the class of 1857. His attention was first 

 turned to botany shortly after leaving college, when being in poor 

 health he took up this study as an incentive to frequent rambles in 

 the fields and woods. This resulted in his contributing many val- 

 uable notes to Paine's " Plants of Oneida County and Vicinity." 

 In i860 Mr. Gilbert engaged in the book business at Utica, N. Y., 

 and sixteen years later joined the editorial staff of the Utica Morn- 

 ing Herald, upon which he served until 1889. During this time — 

 more than a quarter of a century — botany was practically laid 

 aside, but after leaving the paper it was taken up once more, and 

 ferns made a specialty. Since then Mr. Gilbert has travelled ex- 

 tensively, partly for his health, but always with an eye to the 

 ferns. In 1893 he was in the Lesser Antilles, Martinique and St. 

 Thomas; in 1894 in Southern California; in 1895 in Jamaica, where 

 nearly two-thirds of the species in that rich fern flora was col- 

 lected, and in 1898 the winter was spent in Bermuda. During this 

 time he has been untiring in buying, exchanging and collecting 

 ferns and his herbarium now numbers upward of 3,000 sheets 

 repre enting nearly 1,500 species. 



Mr. Gilbert is a member of the Torrey Botanical Club, of the 

 Society of Colonial Wars, and Vice-President of the Fern Chapter. 

 He has contributed many articles to the scientific press, one of the 

 most noteworthy being " A Revision of the Bermuda Ferns." He 

 has also a broad knowledge of the Dairy industry, having been 

 secretary and treasurer of the Utica Dairy Board of Trade since 

 1878, and secretary of the State Dairyman's Association for sev- 

 eral years. He is also author of a pamphlet on the cheese-making 

 industry in New York, published by the United States Govern- 

 ment. 



— Dr. William Trelease has recently described a crested form 

 of Pell era atropurpurea found in Missouri. The form is like 

 typical plants, except that the tips of the pinnules are crested. 

 It is called P. a. forma cristata. 



