A New Fern for the United States

Abstract

On October 15, 1949, Dr. A. M. Harvill and the writer made a trip into Winston County, Alabama. We stopped to examine some rock shelters formed in Pottsyille sandstone along the southern edge of the West Fork of the Sipsey River about five miles east of Double Springs. Growing in fissures and along the ground we found a number of ferns such as Trichomanes Boschiawnum Sturm, Asplenium pinnatifidum Nutt., Athyriuum asplenioides (Michx.) Eaton, Thelypteris normalis (C. Chr.) Moxley, Polystichum acrostichoides (Michx.) Schott, Osmunda regalis L., 0. cinnamomea L., and a specimen which was sent to Dr. Wherry for identification. Dr. Wherry turned the identification over to Mr. George Proctor; who identified the specimen tentatively from Christensen's monograph of Dryopteris as Dryopteris pilosa (Mart. et Gal.) C. Chr. He took a few sprigs to the National Herbarium, where he and C. V. Morton compared it with Mexican material. They found it to match almost exactly a specimen of D. pilosa (determined by Maxon), collected near Mesa Correo, Chihuahua, Mexico, LeSieur 1144 (USNH 1,638,030). Mr. Morton and Dr. Wherry suggested the possibility of a new varietal status and Dr. Wherry suggested a new combination under Thelypteris. A loan of specimens was requested from the National Herbarium and the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, designated in this paper by US and PH respectively, for my study of this fern. Examining 41 specimens of Mexican and Guatemalan material, the writer found very little variation in specimens of D. pilosa and D. pilosa var. procurrens (Fee) C. Chr. except in size. LeSueur 1144, mentioned previously, and Gentry 2112, collected at Saguaribo on 15