By Willard N. Clute.

Nephrodium Molle in Florida.—Mr. James H. Ferriss recently called my attention to specimens of Nephrodium molle received from Florida with the suggestion that this species might be native to the State. On this point, Reasoner Brothers, the well-known plant dealers, have written him that they no longer grow the fern since it is abundant in a wild state and easily obtained when wanted. There seems to be no reason why the species should not occur in Florida, since Nephrodium patens, a close ally, is common there; but as N. Molle is not listed from the United States, we publish this note in the hope of drawing out further information about it and of ascertaining if possible whether Molle is actually native, or only a well naturalized escape. Superficially, molle and patens are so very much alike that it is very easy to confuse them. The venation, however, is a sufficiently distinct feature. In patens the basal veins in each pinnule run to the sinus, uniting at, or just below, it; in molle they unite at some distance from the sinus from whence a single vein runs to the sinus. According to Jenman, patens has a creeping horizontal rootstock with the fronds arranged in two lines along it, while molle has an erect rootstock. The fronds of the latter are also softer and thinner.

Naturalization of an Exotic Fern.—Records of ferns becoming naturalized in new regions are very rare. Pteris serrulata is probably our most conspicuous American example, having been found as an escape in several places, while it is known to grow abundantly on old walls in New Orleans. I have also reported the occurrence in the same place, of an abundance of Pteris longifolia previously known in the United States from Florida alone. In the Fern Bulletin for January, 1898, mention is made of fronds of Pteris tremula seventeen inches high collected from the walls of a tunnel in New York City, and the same article mentions a Japanese species of Athyrium that has become naturalized on Staten Island, New York. To this meagre list, it is with much pleasure that I add another species in the shape of the Japanese climbing fern (Lygodium Japonicum). This Mrs. A. P. Taylor has sent to me from Thomasville, Georgia, where she finds it in profusion along the sides of a deep ditch. The station is not far from a greenhouse from whence the plants doubtless came in the first place, but all indications point to a further spread of this pretty and interesting species.

The Forms of the Spinulose Wood Fern.—It is well-known to fern students that much more attention has been paid to the forms of ferns on the other side of the Atlantic than on this. Since the same species are often common to both localities, it is but natural that the early students of American ferns should pay rather more attention to the mere forms of species common to Great Britain and America than their systematic importance warrants. This is especially true of the variable Nephrodium spinulosum whose variety intermedium, I am convinced, is scarcely more than an ecological form. In this view I am glad to be borne out by Mr. A. B. Klugh, who has recently examined nearly 500 Canadian specimens and come to the same conclusion. Mr. Klugh writes: “In number of glands on the indusium, in color of scales on the stipe, in shape and cutting of the frond and in degree of obliquity of the pinnae, we have a perfect gradation from true spinulosum to typical intermedium. Our commonest form has the indusium glandular and the scales of the stipe pale brown without a dark centre.” In a series of fronds examined there seemed to be no corelation between the color of the scales and the glands on the indusium, there being fronds with light scales and no glands, others with dark centered scales and many glands, and still others the exact opposites of these. Intermedium may be distinguished as a form, but it is certainly far less distinct than such plants as Nephrodium cristatum Clintonianum or Pteris aquilina pseudocaudata and would probably never have appeared in our lists but for the fact that much has been made of the forms of this species in other lands.

Elevation and Lycopodium selago.—Some time ago I noted in this series, that a party of botanists on a visit to Mt. Ktaadn had found Lycopodium selago grading into L. lucidulum as they traveled downward from the summit, and quoted their opinion that L. selago is a xerophytic form of L. lucidulum. In regard to this, Mr. J. B. Flett writes that if the one intergrades with the other, it is doubtless due to elevation or cold, and not to xerophytic conditions. As to the plant’s habitat in the northwest, he says: “I have never seen L. selago growing in a really dry place, I have studied this form in the field from Washington through British Columbia into the islands of southwestern Alaska and on the Aleutian Islands, also on the tundra between Cape Nome and Cape York. No one familiar with this tundra region would ever assert that there are any xerotic forms on it.”