28 



THE FERN BULLETIN 



fern gains possession of the ground. Tern/ to the set- 

 tler, is a specific term and in a land of ferns refers only 

 to the bracken, which he knows to his cost is so diffi- 

 cult to eradicate. When a bracken heath is well de- 

 veloped, it is a trial both to one's patience and muscles 

 to force a path through the entangled mass of fronds, 

 at times more than man high." 



Alaska Fern. — Most of our readers are doubtless 

 familiar with that interesting form of Polystichum 

 aculeahan the fronds of which bear numerous tiny 

 plantlets scattered along the rachis. The fern is us- 

 ually for sale by florists. A subscriber in Seattle, 

 Washington writes that in his city the plant is known 

 as the Alaska fern. 



i 



Woodwardia on Cape Cod. — An article in a recent 

 botanical magazine on the flora of Cape Cod reminded 

 the writer of a walk once taken from the end of cres- 

 cent-shaped Provincetown toward the ocean. The 

 cart-path followed ran through sand, deep sand — typi- 

 cal Cape Cod sand — than which there is nothing more 

 sandy. This was not always unproductive. There 

 were tangled thickets of thorny smilax and along the 

 railroad which it was necessary to cross, beds of shin- 

 ing bear-berry brilliant with fruit. We did not look 

 for ferns ; nevertheless we found them, for suddenly 

 the path led through a boggy place, probably the bed 

 of one of those small ponds which are found among 

 the sand dunes back of Provincetown. There were in 

 the damp way a few plants of Drosera, Xyris flexusa, 

 meadow beauty and Habenaria blephari glottis and 

 crowding upon them and each other a mass of up- 

 standing fronds of Woodwardi Virginica. It was a 

 very happy occasion for the botanical tramp. — 5\ 



