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, ½ 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 ½ 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.