6ra^ Iberbarium 
Ibanmrfc TTlmverstt^ 
B. L. ROBINSON, Curator 
Asa Gray Prof. Syst. Bot. 
M. L. FERNALD, 
Fisher Prof. Nat. Hist. (Bot.) 
CHARLES A. WEATHERBY, Assistant 
IVAN M. JOHNSTON, Assistant 
RUTH D. SANDERSON, Librarian 
LESLEY C. BROWN, Bibliographer 
LILY M. PERRY, Assistant 
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS. U.S.A. 
Jan. 19, 1929. 
Tear Weatherby: 
As you of course know, our thoughts are very often with 
you and Mrs. leatherby and we are all praying that everything may go 
right. I have seen three cases of pneumonia in my own family, all of 
them coming out favorably; the last one, my mother's, when she was 78 
years old and threw off the attack, thanks to serum treatment. The 
first one, Henry's, was when he was an infant and given up as a hope¬ 
less case. But he is now on the school football team and hockey team,- 
s o that we have great hopes that everything is coming out right for 
you. 
I don't know how much you want to be bothered with outside things, 
but I imagine that you may have been occupying your mind with some writ¬ 
ing. If by any chance the Thelypteris paper is sufficiently well in 
form so that I can have it, I shall be glad, for the simple reason that 
it was to be the leading article in the February number of Hhodora. If 
it is not sufficiently along so that I can put it into final shape, do 
not trouble about it and I will run in something different. 
Incidentally, you may be interested or disgusted to know that in 
checking off the Newfoundland identities I have unfortunately stumbled 
into Pteridiurn la tiuscu3rfaw again and find Tesvaux's species was wholly 
misinterpreted by Maxon through lack of knowledge of the distribution of 
the two plants. Tesvaux explicitly states that his thing is the P. „ * 
ceudata of Schkuhr’s plate, the P. aquilina of Michaux, FI. Bor, 
and the ?’. aquilina fi . of Tilldenow's species which was based on the 
Schkuhr plate! TnTother words, Tesvaux's species was a substitute for 
P. csudata of Rchkurh not L. He had^specimen^ of that plant ( pseudooau - 
data ) and - of the common northern thing irhich he, like every one else, 
was treating as typical P. aquilina . The latter plant was collected in 
Pewfoundland by LaPyleie, the former has the label in Tesvaux T s own 
hand, "Habitat in America boreali", and on that label alone Tesvaux has 
written P. latiuscula . The to seudocaudate element exactly accords with 
Tesvaux's description, and when Maxon states that Tesvaux's plant came 
from Newfoundland and St. Pierre, he makes a gratuitous assumption, since 
Tesvaux had the Newfoundland plant before him and didn't cite it,neither 
did he mark that specimen as anything unusual, for to him it was nothing 
but P, aquilina . incidentally, the first name for the common plant of 
the interior ib P. ciliata Willd. and it has several varietal names of 
Lawson and others scattered along. I am naturally grieved to have to 
differ from Maxon again, but it see as to me hOasdone a very slip¬ 
shod, superficial job and with the Tesvaux she f ^t^i^ht before him has mis¬ 
stated the facts, chiefly because he didn'ti.understand the two plants 
and their ranges, and having made up his mind what he wanted to be P. 
latiuscuis., characterized Tesvaux's description as "unsatisfactory", 
