Notes on the Ferns of the Champlain Valley

Abstract

Three years ago, during the summer of 1911, I spent six weeks botanizing in the Champlain Valley of Vermont, collecting not only pteridophytes, but phanerogams as well. Although records of the more important species have already been published in Rhodora (XV. 158-163, 200-201 (1913); XVI. 38-41 (1914)), my friend, Mr. Harold G. Rugg, has suggested that notes on the fernworts collected might prove of interest to readers of the JOURNAL. In the following notes I have accordingly included records of all the species collected, rare or common. My first month, from July to midAugust, was spent at Essex Junction, a railroad junction near Burlington, of some local fame as the scene of frequent railway accidents, and the rest of the time at Swanton, a small town about four miles below the Canadian border. Both towns are situated on large sandy deltas formed in glacial and slightly post-glacial times by the Winooski and Mississquoi Rivers, and deposits of limestone or marble with their characteristic species occur in both localities. A number of ferns, common enough at both places as they are nearly everywhere in the East, may be dismissed with a mere listing of their names. These are Adiantum pedatum, Dryopteris cristata, D. marginalis, D. spinulosa, D. spinulosa var. intermedia, D. Thelypteris, Asplenium filix-femina, A. Trichomanes, Cystopteris fragilis, Onoclea sensibilis, 0. Struthiopteris, Polypodium vulgare (collected at 4000 ft. on Mt. Mansfield), Polystichum acrostichoides, Pteris aquilina, Woodsia ilvensis, Osmunda Claytoniana, and 0. regalis. Dryopteris Boottii, D. cristata var. Clintoniana, and the splendid D. Goldiana were found once or twice at both localities. On a rich wooded