THE RANGE OF POLYPODIUM CALIFORNICUM. 



IN a small package of ferns recently gathered in Costa Rica, 

 brought me by a friend, there were two fronds otPolyPodium 

 Californicum Kaulf. They were found growing in soil not far 

 from San Jose, C. R. So far as I have been able to discover, this 

 species has not previously been found south of Lower California. 

 Neither Hooker, Baker nor Underwood mentions any other coun- 

 try for it except California. Shimek says nothing about it in his 

 " Ferns of Nicaragua;" Baker does not mention it in his " Bio- 

 logia Centrali-Americana," which deals especially with Costa 

 Rican ferns. So, unless there has been some publication of it 

 subsequent to the issue of Baker's " New Ferns," which I am not 

 aware of, this find establishes a new range for it. It has been 

 collected in Lower California and Guadaloupe by Dr. Edward 

 Palmer and T. S. Brandegee. But that was its southern limit 

 up to the present time. One of these fronds is normal in size, 

 form and venation. The other is smaller, having only two pairs 

 of pinnae below the trifid apex, but with the same venation, and a 

 single row of sori on each side of the costa. — B. D. Gilbert. 



In parts of New York State, the Maiden-hair {Adiantum 

 pedatum) instead of the bracken, is called umbrella brake. — 

 W. N. C. 



Mr. T. C. Buchheister notes that in a recent trip to the Cat- 

 skill Mountains of New York, he found numerous forking fronds 

 of Dick sonia pilosiuscula. It would be interesting to know 

 whether the fact that the stipe of this fern usually gives off a 

 secondary rootstock has any bearing upon this frequent forking 

 of the blade. 



In 1894 or 1895 I found a small clump of about ten plants of 

 Dryopeteris Boottii'm a thicket full of D. simulata and other 

 treasures, near Glen Burnie, Maryland. Two years later I found 

 two or three plants by the side of a road nearly twenty miles to 

 the north of the first locality. This adds two more localities to 

 the one mentioned by Mr. Palmer in the January Bulletin. — 

 C. E. Waters. 



