THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



27 



third word, though how a form differs from a variety one 

 searches the dictionary in vain to discover. This shows, for 

 one thing, how much the lexicographers have yet to learn from 

 the botanists. As a matter of fact the "form" seems to repre- 

 sent an entity a little less stable than a variety; that is, if we 

 describe them they are varieties ; if the other fellow names them 

 they are forms. Recently one more catagory has arisen to 

 puzzle us. This is the mutation usuaUy abbreviated to ''mut." 

 Thus we read of Oenothera hiennis mut. lata and the like. 

 Practically all varieties are now regarded as being mutations, 

 however, and in view of this fact we wonder whether it is not 

 possible that that ''mut." has lost a final t and properly belongs 

 to the author citation instead of to the plant. 



BoTRYCHiUM DiCHRONUM A Synonym. — In a recent 

 publication from the United States National Herbarium, Ivar 

 Tidestrom comes to the conclusion that the form of Botry- 

 chium which has been named B. dichromnn is a distinct species 

 but that it is not entitled to the name owing to an earlier name 

 applied to it. The writer of this note collected the specimens 

 upon which B. dichromun is based and he is one of the very 

 few living collectors who have seen the fern growing. He has 

 examined many of the ferns in their native haunts and is still 

 firmly convinced that the plant differs from our common form 

 so slightly as to scarcely entitle it to be called a variety. The 

 most noticeable difference between the rattlesnake fern (Botry- 

 chium Virginianuui) and the so-called Botrychiuni dichromim 

 is the possession of a second sterile frond by the latter. The 

 writer first pointed out that this second, apparently sterile frond 

 is in reality the fertile frond of the previous year, from which 

 the spore-bearing part has fallen. Numbers of specimens were 

 examined and all bore evidence of having once borne sporo- 

 phylls. In this plant, as in all other herbaceous ferns, the 

 spore-bearing parts are short-lived in comparison with the 

 sterile portions and in warmer parts of the world the sterile 



