THE AMERICAN SOTaNIST. 



87 



eons, 1% to 7 cm. long, scarious edged as is also the rachis, 

 strong and stiff ; frond including stipe 12 to 38 cm. long, 

 1 to 2 cm. wide, pinnate with 25 to 40 pairs of pinnae; 

 pinnfe close or distant, opposite above, alternate or oppo- 

 site below, more distant and decreasing to V2 the size of 

 the middle ones^ slightly stalked or sessile for %the length 

 from tip of frond, stalked at lower interior corner, trun- 

 cate at base then gradually changing attachment to mid* 

 die of base and becoming more or less triangular ; pinna? 

 above these, oblong, bluntly rounded at end, crenate on 

 upper edge and around upper end ; veins simple except the 

 lowest upper vein which runs into the slight auricle and 

 is once or twice forked ; sori regular or scattered even on 

 the same frond, one in the auricle and on each vein when 

 regular, oblique close to midrib ; indusiun pale, edge irreg- 

 ular. 



Habitat : Bermuda ; Ocala, Florida. 



The affiliation of this species is with A. resiliens rather 

 than with A. trichomanes. In factj I am not certain that 

 some of the specimens which have been distributed as A. 

 parvulum {—resiliens) are not A. muticum. 

 Clajville, N. Y. 



URING my A^ounger days I would handle this plant 



with impunity often gathering it in October for its 

 bright coloring and never fearing it, as it never^ at any 

 time of the year, poisoned me. For several years I did not 

 live where I met with it so I can not tell at what time this 

 immunity ceased. I onl3^know that for the last few years 

 I cannot touch it in the slightest degree without days and 

 often weeks of acute suffering from the intolerable itching 

 and burning pain which accompanies this form of poison- 

 ings I avoid it as I would a pestilence, never touching it, 

 and if possible, never walking over it during its flowering 

 season as the pollen is evidently poisonous to me. My 

 first experience was a terrible one. The first beginning be- 



POISON IVY AND ITS EFFECTS. 



BY ANGIE M. KYON. 



