50 



THE FERN BULLETIN 



to his garden where it continued to put forth its ab- 

 normal fronds for many years and may still be alive 

 for anything the writer knows to the contrary. Dur- 

 ing the period in which Mr. Graves gave his principal 

 attention to the study of ferns he was often advised to 

 describe his abnormal specimen, but he was always so 

 much engrossed in the study and cultivation of the 

 living ferns that he never found time to write a for- 

 mal scientific description of the plant, though he had 

 settled on a name for it. The form undoubtedly de- 

 serves a distinctive name and since the discoverer is 

 no longer with us, it seems very fitting that the form 

 be named for him. I therefore offer the following de- 

 scription of 



POLYSTICHUM ACROSTICHOIDES f. GRAVESII. 



Plant similar to the type but with the pinnae ending in 

 truncate tips from which the miclveins project as 

 spinelike bristles. Type in the herbarium of Willard 

 N. Clute. Cotype in the herbarium of Alfred Twin- 

 ing, Scranton, Pa, 



Although the description is drawn from a single 

 plant it is likely that a search in the regions where the 

 Christmas fern is aboundant would reveal other speci- 

 mens with the same peculiarity. Indeed, H. G. Rugg 

 in a paper before the Vermont Botanical Club, last 

 winter, described a plant that, to judge from his re- 

 marks must be essentially the same thing. He says : 

 "For several years I have had a peculiar form of this 

 fern growing in my garden. It is interesting because 

 of the truncate form of the pinnae and the multifid 

 form of the tip of the frond. The sterile fronds are 

 usually like those of the type plant. This fern I trans- 

 planted into my garden several years ago and ever 

 since then it has continued to bear these peculiar 

 fronds. The late Mr. B. D. Gilbert was interested in 



