(SialnxaMK Muirnxsita, in t\tt ©its of ^ciuj %axk 



DEPARTMENT OF BOTANY 



! ' ' • 



■r ' 



I S7 December 1896 



Ity deal' I-tL'. Davenport, 



•Wiiile I only saw one plant of the Botrychiiiin blternatum 

 grwTing, I sa^T sevei'al plants of^^dlfferent collections In np. Mote's 

 lot and we have several collected long ago in Soth Carolina in the herb. 

 Torrey. In all these the sterile segment is practically sessile . I 

 have not examined all for the bud but found it smooth in those that I 

 did examine. I see no striking similarity in the difference of season 

 you cite fi'ora Lit, Dese*t for th^e is quite a difference fcom Septem- 

 ber to February or March as compared with tv;o months during the growing 

 season of summers As to the matter of difference of cutting that 

 comes from the fact that several things are still Included in the so 

 called Ternatum v/hich really do not belong there, I have no less than 

 ttoeei besides the European form!, I have been collecting the species for 

 a number of years and now have specimens from forty or more different 

 localities ranging from Mexico and California to Maine and Alabama. 

 I find a general constancy in the cutting within a rational margin 

 and find differences in the so called varieties that are good spe- 

 cific characters, I have not time just now to work all this out but hope 

 to get mo±e light on the material at Kew when I can go over there. 



You entirely misunderstand my question about Adanson's genera* I 

 hold no man infallible not even Swart z on fern G-enerai- But if Asimina 

 and Polygonatiim are good genera^Dryopteris is just as good a one. To be 

 consistent we must drop all three if we drop one. So Dr, (xi?ay thoxaght 

 in 1848 and why he changed I have only a theory, I would like some facts 



