Part 2

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."

SCOLOPENDRIUM FROM CANADA.

By Homer D. House.

At least four stations for the Harts-tongue fern are known in the vicinity of Owen Sound in northwestern Ontario. Specimens from these localities are rare in herbaria, and the writer is fortunate in receiving specimens from near Collingwood, a station twenty-three miles east of Owen Sound. This station was first authentically reported by Mr. Osler and described by Mr. Maxon in "Fernwort Papers" in 1900. These specimens were collected by Dr. W. A. Bastedo and he describes the place where they were collected as being five or six miles from Collingwood. The plants were growing in a shady, though rather open wood, along the course of a small stream. The altitude is given as 1635 feet above sea-level. The plants at the time of collection, July 17th, 1903, were nearly all young and even the mature fronds are but five to eight inches in length, though all of them are very broad for their length. Dr. Bastedo further notes that in the recesses of the cliff, snow was still abundant at that date. _Polystichum Lonchitis_ and _Dryopteris Filix-mas_ were abundant and _Asplenium Trichomanes_ and _Cryptogramma Stelleri_ were common upon the cliffs. This station is undoubtably one of those described by Mr. Maxon in the neighborhood of Collingwood. However, a careful search of this entire region is very much to be desired, as it is probable that the fern has a more general distribution in this region than is known at present.

THE GENUS EQUISETUM IN NORTH AMERICA.

By A. A. Eaton.

FIFTEENTH PAPER. Varieties of E. Hiemale.

1. _Intermedium_ A. A. Eaton. Stems 1 to 4 feet high, 1 to 4 lines in diameter, simple or ultimately branched, 20 to 30 angled, rough with transverse bands of silex or becoming smoother by a later deposit covering them; sheaths longer than broad, ampliated, green excepting narrow black and white incurved limb, or exceptionally with other black and white markings; leaves keeled below the middle, flat and often centrally grooved above; teeth thin, brown, hyaline-bordered, deciduous or persistent; anatomy of _hiemale_ as previously described. New York, Michigan and westward. Common west of the Mississippi, being an important forage crop in some States. The anomalous _laevigatum_ collected by Rydberg at Thedford, Neb., No. 1283 (Cont. Nat. Herb. III, 194), is this variety, as is the plant referred to under the name of _variegatum_ by V. K. Chestnut (Cont. Nat. Herb. VII, 304), as used for various unimportant purposes by the Indians of Mendocino County, California. He also mentions the fact that horses eat it even when grass is abundant.

2. _Texanum_ Milde. Stems erect, very slender, somewhat rough, 10 to 12 angled, hardly 1 foot high, dirty green; sheaths elongated, slightly widened, 2 to 2 1-3 lines long and 1 1-3 wide, concolorous, leaves flat, centrally grooved and 4 angled above and centrally ridged below; teeth persistent, flexuous, white with red-brown center, lance subulate, smooth, only the lowermost three sheaths red-brown; ridges convex; carinal bast 7, vallecular 4, cells high, vallecular holes transverse oval; stomata rows separated by 7 to 8 cells, grooves naked, lumen of epidermal cells very wide, angles with broad, short bands, never with two rows of tubercles. Texas, _Chas. Wright_.

This is Milde's description. I have never seen this plant. Milde states that it is a very peculiar plant that equals the weakest specimens of var. _Moorei_, but differs greatly from it, and he asks if it may not be the young stage of a larger species.

3. _Herbaceum_ var. nov. Cespitose, decumbent, ascending or erect, 3 to 10 inches high, 1/2 to 1 line in diameter, 6 to 12 angled, weak and herbaceous or becoming firmer the second year, usually bearing a single branch 1 to 2 inches long at each node. Walls of the stem thicker than in _hiemale_; ridges with long cross-bands; grooves naked, except for small spots of silex on the cells; sheaths elongated and very wide-spreading, with a narrow black band at tip, otherwise green or (in dried specimens at least) all suffused with black; leaves 3-angled or flat in the middle above, rarely bearing a central groove; teeth fuscous, flexuous, deciduous, leaving a hard, horny, centrally grooved erect or incurved, usually shining, borderless leaf base 1/2 its height; spikes narrowly elliptical, rounded, not apiculate. _Coville & Funston_, 1297, Death Valley Exp., banks of Kaweah river at Three Rivers, Tulare Co., Calif., July 26, 1891 (Nat. Herb., 25, 101), as _variegatum_. Three little plants, 3 inches high, well fruited (Cont. Nat. Mus. IV, 226). _C. & F._, 1042, 1 mile south of Kernville, Kern Co., Calif., on north fork of Kern river, Alt., 750 meters, June 23, 1901, as _variegatum_ (Nat. Herb., 25100).

In some of its characters, such as sheaths and persistent, incurved leaf-bases, this plant resembles _Funstoni_, but the section is similar to _hiemale_. An abundance of material might show this to be a good species. The only thing I have seen that approaches it in texture is _E. Sieboldi_ Milde from Japan, which is even more grass-like.

4. _Pumilum_ var. nov. Cespitose; stems in a dense cluster, 6 to 15 inches tall, 8 to 16 angled, 1/2 to 1 line in diameter, mostly geniculate at the lower nodes, nearly all the joints tumid, the lower gibbous; ridges with cross-bands of silex, grooves naked; sheaths tight, often symmetrical through the tumidity of the node, narrowest in the middle except where nodes are normal, bearing a broad black band below and a narrower black limb, the two separated by a pinkish or dirty white band which is often suffused with black or even entirely black towards the top of the stem, fading to dirty ashy the second year, ultimately splitting, recurving and falling off in patches; leaves linear, erect, prominently 3-angled, the central one sometimes grooved on the smallest stems and branches; teeth persistent, dark brown, somewhat flexuous, white-bordered for 1-5 to 1-4 their height.

Found at intervals for a mile along the railroad grade at North Hampton, N. H. At the foot of the grade, in moist soil near a brook, probably from the same source as this, a form of _affine_ grows, but the joints are often tumid and occasionally geniculate, the branches when present like stems of this, tumid jointed, often so gibbous as to rupture the sheath. Peculiar for its small cespitose stems, dark sheaths and especially the tumid or gibbous nodes, which make the stems thickest there, while usually the nodes are contracted.

This is near the European variety _viride_ Milde, but differs in having bands on the ridges, no rosulæ in the grooves, and in the tumid joints.

5. _Suksdorfi_ var. nov. Stems 1 to 2-1/2 feet high, 1 to 3 lines wide, about 24 angled, rough, with cross-walls of silex, rarely with ends elevated to two rows of tubercles; stomata in single rows, rarely double for a short distance, each stoma connected at top and bottom with its opposite by rows of rosulæ formed by the silex bands of the grooves throwing up tubercles on each cell of the epidermis, which open at top to circular jagged disks, these often obscured later by a washing of silex, but always shown near the tops of the stems and on the branches; sheaths elongated, cylindrical, tight, black, developing a ring of tawny white which gradually increases till it occupies the whole sheath except a narrow black basal ring and a narrow black limb formed by the horny tips of the leaves; leaves linear, narrowed above the middle, the lower 2-3 keeled, the upper third flat, rarely with a narrow carinal groove above, tipped with a small, black, horny, hyaline-bordered point; teeth articulated to the leaves, black-centered, soon fading, withering and deciduous.

Anatomy of _hiemale_, the carinal bast elongated along the dissepiment, the vallecular much smaller but often similar in shape. Upper 1 to 3 nodes bearing 1 to 4 branches each, which overtop the stem and bear contemporaneous spikelets.

This would be a noteworthy variety even if it bore no branches. It is the only American form of _heimale_ known to me, except occasionally _intermedium_ which bears branches with the first effort of growth. All the others develop them, if at all, after the stem has ceased to grow, and the vegetative energy, having no other outlet, pushes out a few of the latent buds lying between the ridges at the nodes.

Bingen, Wash. High bottom land on the Columbia river. _W. N. Suksdorf_, September 3, 1902, No. 2161.

6. _Drummondi_ (Milde) _C. robustum Drummondi_ Milde, Mon. Equis. 593. Fertile stems 3 feet high, 16 angled; sheaths short, the lowest fuscous; teeth persistent, white, crispate; stomata often of 1 to 3 lines to a series, which are separated by 4 to 6 cells.

Collected by Drummond at the Brazos river in Texas. It is very aberrant, but is placed here on account of its anatomy. I have not seen specimens of this.

7. _Affine_ (_Eng._) (_E. robustum affine Eng._) _E. hiemale_ of American authors, not L. Stems 18 to 30 inches high, 2 to 5 lines in diameter, finely 16 to 40 angled, dark green, angles with broad bands of silex, rarely with two rows of tubercles. Internodes when dry contracted above and below, widest in the middle as in _hiemale_, scurfy when young; sheaths longer than broad, at first with a black limb, developing a broad ashy band and narrow black basal ring, fading, rupturing and deciduous the second or third year; leaves narrowly linear, sharply 3 angled, the central ridges only rarely centrally grooved except on the branches, where they usually are; commissural groove very narrow, not widened upward; teeth articulated to the sheaths, persistent or usually cohering by their tips and torn off by the growth of the stem, those of each sheath shaped like a candle extinguisher, all telescoped together and borne up on the tip of the stem.

Very common in New England and the east generally, where the type of _robustum_ is absent. Toward the west it runs into the next, but it is occasionally found, even to the valley of Mexico (Pringle 3329). Approaches typical _hiemale_ in its long sheaths and size, and differs little except in the cross-bands of silex. Found usually in moist sand near a watercourse; at times on high sandy banks. It is by no means certain that this is the variety described by Engelmann under this name, but from the brief description he gives it seems safe to assume that it is. Two branched forms are found, as follows:

a. _Forma ramosum_ f. nov. (f. _Ramigerum_ A. A. E., in Gilbert's list, p. 26, not A. Br. in Sched., which normally branches at the 3 to 5 middle nodes.) Stems issuing one to several branches from the upper nodes after the death of the top of the main axis; teeth usually persistent and leaves centrally grooved. b. _Forma polystachyum_ Prager. Stems issuing small spiciferous branches late in the season. As remarked by Mr. Gilbert (List, p. 26), these forms are seldom found together and many patches show neither.

The stems of this variety persist at least three years and probably longer. I have found but two causes of death, old age not appearing as a factor. Both are fungoid. After the stem has persisted for a time small white patches appear under the epidermis of the upper internode. These increase in number and the internode finally dies, not, however, till the second one shows the disease. This may continue till the whole stem succumbs. The other fungus is a smut that breaks out in small pustules, finally opening in black patches the size of the head of a pin or smaller. They are usually numerous and the stem dies rapidly.

The growth of the stem is indeterminate, but as each succeeding section is a little smaller than the one below, the time arrives in the history of each when no more can be pushed out and the growth ceases. The undeveloped internodes soon die and thus the stem, if it grows at all, must put its energy into branches, as the silex coating prevents its increase in diameter.

9. _Robustum_ (A. Br.) _E. robustum_ A. Br. Stems 3 to 6 feet tall, 2 to 6 lines wide, 16 to 48 angled, simple or branched the second year; ridges rough with cross-bands of silex; grooves naked with a smooth coat of silex, and when young with a thin white scurfy coat that soon falls off; sheaths tight to the stem, or recurved and deciduous in fragments in age, as broad as long, soon developing a black girdle at base, an ashy or pinkish one through the middle and a black one above, the last usually very small, all variable in breadth and intensity of color; leaves linear, sharply 3 angled; commissural groove not widened above; teeth more or less persistent for a season, seldom torn off by the growth of the stem, articulated to the leaves, cohering, in groups, brown centrally, with tawny margins 1/2 their height, ending in filiform usually flexuous appendages, the edges beset with unicellular bristles; branches variable in number and length, the sheaths mostly like those of the stem except the teeth always persist and the leaves are usually grooved centrally; spikes usually green, oval, up to an inch long and half as wide, sharply apiculate. _Ramosum_ and _polystachyum_ forms occur in this as well as in _affine_.

Rare east of the Mississippi, where it is replaced by var. _affine_. Very common west, where it has been reported from nearly every State. I have seen it from but six localities in the Eastern States, Wallingford, Pa., _T. C. Palmer_; Towson, Md., _C. E. Waters_; Peoria, Ill., _F. E. McDonald_; Illinois, without locality, _Dr. Brendell_; Mattsville, Ind., _Guy Wilson_; Sarnia, Mich., _C. K. Dodge_; accredited to New Jersey by Milde, and also found in the Himalayas.

Var. _minus_ Eng. is simply the same thing reduced, often growing with it. As there is already a variety _minus_ of _hiemale_ this name will not stand, and the form is of too little moment to merit another.

Stems of this can usually be recognized at a glance, but it is hard to embody the description in words that will enable one to separate it from _affine_ at once. From _Californicum_ it can only be separated by use of a lens, as their appearance is identical.

10. _Californicum_ Milde. Plants of various appearance, now 15 inches high and 4 lines wide, now 7-1/2 to 8 feet tall and 8 lines wide, 25-40 angled; the ridges with two distinct rows of tubercles or occasionally with transverse bands of silex, the grooves abundantly supplied with rosulæ, either in regular rows or scattered, often indistinct on old stems because of a heavy deposit of silex; sheaths as broad as long, with a broad or narrow black or dark brown ring just above the base, an ashy band in the middle and another usually narrow dark band at top. In young plants the sheaths are usually concolorous with the stem save for the terminal band; leaves linear, 3-angled with two rows of tubercles on the middle angle; commissural groove narrow, slightly or not at all widened above; teeth persistent, dark brown, firm, united two-thirds their height by brown borders; or brown-centered, flexuous, membranous-bordered, united or free, or early deciduous, leaving only a small dark brown spot at the tip of the leaves; branches none or few, short or up to 18 inches long, fruited or not, on the upper part of old stems.

Type. California _Balfour_, 1854. I have seen it from the following localities: California: Sacramento, _Wilkes Exp._ (Sheaths black, teeth persistent, near var. _Javanicum_); Berkeley, _W. C. Blasdale_ (very stout, often with two rows of stomata); San Rafael, _Munson & Hopkins_ (like last, but with one row of stomata). Arizona: Cedar Ranch, _MacDougal_. Nevada: Humboldt Mts., _Watson_. Utah: Fish Lake, _Jones_; Glenwood, _Ward_. Idaho: Peter Creek, _Sandberg_; Salmon, _Henderson_. Oregon: Port Discovery, _Wilkes Exp._ Washington: Tacoma, _Flett_; Klickitat Co., _Suksdorf_. British Columbia: New Westminster, _A. J. Hill_. (No rosulæ, occasionally two rows of stomata, extraordinarily thick coating of silex.)

Except the Berkeley and San Rafael plants these can be told from _robustum_ only by aid of the microscope to see the tubercles and rosulæ. Though specimens vary considerably in appearance, the presence or absence of teeth, the size and intensity of the rings, a parallel can usually be found in a good series of _robustum_.

11. _Doelli._ Stems 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 feet high, erect, dark green, 10 to 20 angled, the ridges with two rows of tubercles or short crossbands, the former predominating; grooves with irregular rows of rosettes; sheaths entirely black or with a narrow ashy band which is broader the second year; the leaves plainly 4 angled through the grooving of the central ridge; teeth persistent or becoming broken in age, rigid, erect, dark brown or black, grooved in the center, with narrow white margins and usually deciduous filiform tips. Somewhat resembles a robust _E. trachyodon_, which it is quite near.

Type European. British Columbia, near Wharnock Station, _A. J. Hill_; Vancouver, _Macoun_ (as _ramosissimum_); Blacktail Deer Creek, Yellowstone Park, _Knowlton_. The latter is quite peculiar in appearance and approaches _robustum_. None of the specimens exactly agree, but will come here better than elsewhere. _The Ames Botanic Laboratory, North Easton, Mass._

THE SPECIES-CONCEPTION AMONG THE TERNATE BOTRYCHIUMS.

By Willard N. Clute.

Living as I do in the midst of a region rich in specimens of the ternate _Botrychiums_, I have taken more than ordinary interest in the discussion of the relative rank to which the various forms should be assigned. After considerable study of the subject which has consisted of a careful balancing of the degree of differentiation in each form, as well as an examination of much material both in the herbarium and in the field, I have come to certain conclusions which I purpose to set down here.

Before the separate forms are discussed it may be well to say a few words on the variations of _Botrychium ternatum_ in general. It is a noticeable fact that all the so-called new species of this section of the genus, have been based primarily upon the cutting of the sterile part of the frond. This is all the more remarkable since there are probably no other genera in which species are founded on the minor outlines of a mere leaf. One has but to turn to nature in any clime to see that leaves are not invariably of the same shape. Note the wide variation in the moonseed, the hollyhock, the sassafras, and some of the buttercups among flowering plants, and if it be contended that the cases are not parallel, take as further illustration the blood-root, which, like the _Botrychium_, produces but one leaf a year, and note the cutting of its single leaf. If all these forms of _Botrychium_ are species, why have not the forms of the bloodroot been segregated? Moreover, if we are to recognize these forms of _Botrychium_ as species, why should we not also recognize as such the three hundred forms of _Athyrium filix-foemina_, or the hundred or more forms of _Scolopendrium_? It is unavailing to say that these latter are mere gardeners' varieties, for we have it on the authority of Mr. Druery, who is familiar with them all, that a large number come true from spores.

Experiments with flowering plants have shown that the thickness of leaves and the amount of cutting of their edges, may be altered by different degrees of moisture, sunshine, etc., to which they are exposed, and we may infer as much for the ferns. This being so, it is not difficult to account for the slight variations in cutting exhibited in plants from widely separated points in the United States.

It is, of course, possible to follow the latest writer on the subject, and consider each extreme of variation a distinct species, but I do not agree with him in the opinion that the naming of varieties is a stupid practice, nor do I see that it necessarily follows that because a species was named _Japonicum_ from Japanese specimens that we must infer that its centre of distribution is in Japan. As I understand it, to take a familiar example, _B. ternatum_ stands for a plant possessing certain characters no matter where found. If we should find another _Botrychium_ that differed from this in some specific way, it would be correct to call it another species; but if it showed minor differences, slightly thicker or thinner leaves, a longer or shorter stipe, a little deeper notching of the leaves, etc.--all characters that vary with the locality--then it would seem more properly referred as a variety of the first species.

As I have noted in this journal there are certain slight differences between the Japanese _B. ternatum_ and our familiar species of Eastern America, but these are not enough, I now believe, to make them two separate species, since all the differences are found in the texture and cutting of the sterile part of the frond. Under such circumstances I would arrange our American forms as follows:

Botrychium ternatum obliquum (_B. obliquum Muhl._). The common form in the North Atlantic States.

B. t. obliquum forma DISSECTUM (_B. dissectum_ Spreng.). An exact duplicate of the preceding form in everything except the cutting of the pinnules. These latter characterized by a paucity of tissue between the terminal veins. Has the same habitat and range, and the same peculiarity of waiting until July or later before putting up its leaf for the season. No more entitled to specific rank than the "cut leaved" birch or elder.

B. t. obliquum forma INTERMEDIUM (_B. obliquum intermedium_ Unde.). I would call this a mere form, comparable to any of the chance varieties of _Athyrium filix-foemina_.

B. t. obliquum forma COULTERI (_B. Coulteri_ Unde.). A western form rather more fleshy than that of the East. Grows in geyser formations which may account for the difference in its appearance.

B. t. obliquum forma OCCIDENTALE (_B. occidentale_ Unde.). Closely related to the preceding, and, in my opinion, a phase of it. Both good representatives of the western form.

B. ternatum Oneidense (_B. ternatum_ var. _Oneidense_ Gilbert). This, the most strongly marked of the forms in the Atlantic States failed to receive a place in the recently published index to the described species of _Botrychium_. It can be distinguished at a glance in field or herbarium by its broad and slightly divided pinnules, and is very common in central New York. The fronds, notwithstanding their broad pinnules, are among the smallest of the group. If any of our forms of _Botrychium_ are entitled to sub-specific rank, this is certainly the one.