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the new frond has made its appearance : so that a plant with
two fronds, one of them the growth of the previous year, is not
rarely seen.
While the species, as a whole, extends round the north
temperate zone, and is spread to the southward as far as Venezuela
and Tasmania, some of the forms have a more or less
restricted range. Var. hmarioides, as here considered, has been
found only in South Carolina and the Gulf States ; var. I'utcB-
foliuni, though the only European form, occurs in America only
in Newfoundland, New Brunswick, and the neighboring region;
var. australe is found from Japan to Tasmania, in the Sandwich
Islands, in Central America, Venezuela, New Granada, and
Mexico, and thence through California to Unalaska, and again, in
a somewhat reduced form, in Wyoming, the Middle States, and
New England, where it passes by imperceptible and undefinable
changes into var. obliquum. This transitional form, which we
may call sub-variety iitlermedium, is the typical B . lunarioides
of Gray’s Manual. Dr. Milde’s figure of B . rutcefolhmi, var.
robustum (Nov. Acta. Acad. Nat. Cur., xxvi., ii., t. 55, fig. 9), from
Unalaska, well represents it. Var. obliquum is common from
Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and extends, according to Milde,
to Hudson’s Bay and to Mexico. Var. dissecluzn is less common,
but occurs from Canada to Florida, and is apparently
identical with a plant in New Zealand.
The colored plate represents at the right a plant of var. lunarioides
from Burke County, Georgia ; in the middle is var. obliquum, from Medford,
Massachusetts ; and at the left is var. dissectum, from Maine. Of
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the enlarged segments, the uppermost is var. lunarioides, the middle one
var. dissectum, and the lowest var. obliquum. At the left are shown a group
of sporangia enlarged, a highly magnified spore, and a bud both whole
and in section. More finely divided plants of var. dissectum are not very
uncommon.
In the uncolored plate, the largest plant, behind the other two, is var.
australe, from Plumas County, California, collected by Mrs. Austin ; the
middle plant is also var. australe, from Lewis County, New York (Mrs.
Barnes) ; and the plant in front of the others is sub-var. intermedium, from
Shelbourne, in New Hampshire. The larger detached segment is from
another very large Californian plant, and the smaller one is from a second
plant from Lewis County, New York.
I have to express my thanks to Mr. Davenport for having selected
most of these specimens, and for the great pains he has taken in assisting
Mr. Emerton to arrange them for drawing.
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