The Identity of Aspidium ludovicianum

Abstract

Louisiana held an attraction for plant collectors at an early date. The Louisiana prior to 1803 comprised what is now the central United States west of the Mississippi River, except the territory that later became Texas. However, the part concerned in this note refers, evidently, to what is now known as the state of Louisiana. Although remote from the Atlantic Coastal region and thus less accessible, collections of plants made in the eighteenth century became the basis of floras published in the first decade of the nineteenth century. European collectors, French and German, ventured into that wilderness when the population was scant. The following note in Flora 6: 336. 1823, records one fatality-the discoverer of the fern under consideration. Vor ungefahr 30 Jahren meldeten politische Zeitungen aus Amerika, das ein Hr. Prof. Ludwig aus Leipzig, auf einer botan. Excursion in den dortigen Waldern von einer Klapperschlange gebissen worden und bald darauf als ein wahrhafter Martyrer der Botanik gestorben sey. Or, as translated: Thirty years ago the newspapers of America informed us that a Herr Professor Ludwig of Leipzig, on a botanical excursion in the forests there, was struck by a rattlesnake, and soon thereafter died, a true martyr to botany. The second stage in this fern's history began with the describing of the species Aspidium (Polystichum) ludo-