THE FERN BULLETIN 



Vol. XV OCTOBER, 1907. No. 4 



FIFTEEN YEARS OF FERN STUDY 



By Willard N. Clute. 



With the present number, The Fern Bulletin com- 

 pletes fifteen years of continuous publication. To the edi- 

 tor it seems but yesterday since the first tiny numbers of 

 the Linncean Fern Bulletin — with pages so much smaller 

 than the current issues that they are often facetiously 

 referred to as the prothallium stage of The Fern Bulle- 

 tin — were issued; and yet, so much has been accom- 

 plished in fern study during this time that we begin to 

 realize how inadequate as a standard of measurement 

 any mere term of years is. When we began publication, 

 practically all the authorities on American ferns were 

 living. John Williamson had died less than ten years 

 earlier, but we still had with us John Goldie, Daniel 

 Cady Eaton, Thomas Meehan, John Redfield and Sadie 

 F. Price. One by one these have passed away, to be 

 joined more recently by Benjamin D. Gilbert, George E. 

 Davenport and L. M. Underwood. All that remain to 

 us of those whow ere writing on ferns when this maga- 

 zine first appeared are S. B. Parish and Marcus E. 

 Jones. Those whom we must now call authorities were 

 then boys and girls at school. We are not, however, en- 

 tirely without links connecting us with that earlier time, 

 for the sons of John Goldie and R. B. Scott, the latter 

 the discoverer of Asplenium ebenoides, are still on our 

 subscription list. These are men in middle life, but we 

 have several subscribers whose memory must outrun 

 theirs, for several have passed the 85th milestone of 

 life's journey and one, having passed ninety, has his eye 

 set on the hundred mark. 



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