—13— 



Holding such views as these, I look upon some of the 

 recent extreme segregations which narrow species down 

 to very nearly individual limitations, as contrary to na- 

 ture, and as tending to complicate rather than to facili- 

 tate the work of general students. Applying these prin- 

 ciples to the American and European forms of the species 

 under consideration, the bond of unity between them is 

 strengthened, and becomes more absolute. On trie other 

 hand subjecting our American forms to the same treat- 

 ment that the forms — mere forms, too — of B. ternatum 

 have received, would result in the formulating of many 

 false species, and an equally deplorable result would fol- 

 low such segregation of European forms ; yet they both 

 can furnish fully as much material for the manufacture 

 of new species ! as B. ternatum itself. 



At the time Wood published his Botrychium neglectum 

 the species was scarcely known to American botanists, 

 and most of the few specimens that had been collected 

 were sadly confused with B. simplex — just as similar 

 specimens abroad had been confused with B. Lunaria — 

 as I demonstrated in my monograph on B. simplex in 

 1877, so that it was only natural for Wood to suppose 

 that his plant was new, and to name it accordingly ; but 

 when its identity with B. matricar ice folium became known, 

 Wood's name necessarily lapsed, and the attempt to re- 

 store it should be abandoned, as it cannot be successfully 

 maintained. 



Our American plant is true Botrychium matricaricc- 

 folium Al. Braun, and Wood's B. neglectum exactly rep- 

 resents Milde's var. subintegrum. Dr. Milde himself 

 recognized the identity of American forms with his when 

 he cited for it Hooker's figure of a plant from Canada, in 

 " Icones Filicum " (tab. 82, left hand figure). But in 

 further confirmation of this, I have appended a copy of 

 Luersen's illustrations of European Matricaria, 'folium 

 from his "Die Farnplanzen," 1889 (Plate 2). Those 

 figures which represent Milde's var. subintegrum corre- 

 spond very well indeed with Wood's B. neglectum. 



