Polystichum acrostichoides f. Gravesii.
Plant similar to the type but with the pinnae ending in truncate tips from which the midveins project as spinelike bristles. Type in the herbarium of Willard N. Clute. Cotype in the herbarium of Alfred Twining, Scranton, Pa.
Although the description is drawn from a single plant it is likely that a search in the regions where the Christmas fern is abundant would reveal other specimens with the same peculiarity. Indeed, H. G. Rugg in a paper before the Vermont Botanical Club, last winter, described a plant that, to judge from his remarks must be essentially the same thing. He says: “For several years I have had a peculiar form of this fern growing in my garden. It is interesting because of the truncate form of the pinnae and the multifid form of the tip of the frond. The sterile fronds are usually like those of the type plant. This fern I transplanted into my garden several years ago and ever since then it has continued to bear these peculiar fronds. The late Mr. B. D. Gilbert was interested in the plant and asked permission to describe it in the Fern Bulletin but illness and finally death prevented.” Apparently the only difference between the Vermont and Pennsylvania plants is the cristate apex, but as forking tips are to be expected in any species this feature is not extraordinary.
Mr. Graves usually spoke of his specimen as the variety truncatum. This is the name it bears in some herbaria and is the one it undoubtedly would have borne in literature had he lived to describe it. Those who were fortunate enough to have known Mr. Graves personally, however, will be pleased to see his name associated with one of the forms of that division of the plant world which he studied so long and so assiduously. It need hardly be said for the readers of this magazine that Mr. Graves was one of the founders of the Linnaean Fern Chapter the name by which the American Fern Society was originally known, was elected the first treasurer and held that office through half the lifetime of the society, was one time president of the same society and for a long time one of the most resourceful of its Advisory Council members.
The drawing herewith was made from the middle pinnae of a frond kindly supplied by Mr. Alfred Twining, of Scranton, Pa. It is a fair average of the form and though without much beauty of outline is still of interest for the form in which nature has cast it.