﻿THE FERN BULLETIN 



35 



area not over 40 by 80 rods, all but two of them several 

 times. The missing- number is N. marginale X spinu- 

 losum, Miss Slosson's Pittsf or dense. The parent 

 plants were abundant in close proximity, and with 

 another chance I should look for this with considerable 

 confidence of success. 



Recorded collections indicate that Nephrodium hy- 

 brids are of rather frequent occurrence in suitable lo- 

 calities ; that is in wooded swamps. Last fall, while 

 in the midst of study on the Vermont collection, I re-> 

 ceived a fine frond of N. Clintonianum X Goldianum 

 collected by Mr. Trundy in Farming-ton, Maine. N. 

 cristatum X marginale is very commonly reported from 

 the New England and eastern Middle states. While 

 Boottii is so common as to place its hybrid origin in 

 question. In some localities it is more common than 

 cristatum. This sugges's that it reproduces itself. I 

 am satisfied that such is the case for I have raised 

 plants from spores of Boottii, not to the fruiting- stage 

 but to fronds one foot in length. I hope to have more 

 to say about this later. 



While the recognition and description of several of 

 this group of hybrids by Prof. Dowell and Mr. Bene- 

 dict, (Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, Vol. 36, 

 No. 1.), adds greatly to the fern collector's interest in 

 and comprehension of the genus, of course it does not 

 exhaust this field for study, but raises as many quest- 

 ions as it settles besides leaving many old ones unans- 

 wered. For instance those suggested by the varying 

 form of N. cristatum and N. Clintonianum. As N. 

 cristatum is frequently associated with N. spinulosum, 

 why is N. cristatum X spinulosum so rarely found? I 

 believe it is sometimes taken for N. Boottii. Since 

 working out my Vermont collection I have carefully 



