Chapter I: Part 1

BEAUTIFUL FERNS.

FROM
ORIGINAL WATER-COLOR DRAWINGS AFTER NATURE,
By C. E. FAXON and J. H. EMERTON.

Descriptive Text by Daniel Cady Eaton,
PROFESSOR OF BOTANY IN YALE COLLEGE.

BOSTON:
ESTES AND LAURIAT.
1886.

_Copyright, 1885_,
By H. B. Nims and Company.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

American Maiden-Hair
Ostrich-Fern
Alpine Beech-Fern
Fragrant Wood-Fern
Goldie’s Wood-Fern
Webby Lip-Fern
Eaton’s Lip-Fern
Male Fern
Trifoliate Cliff-Brake
Clayton’s Cliff-Brake
Slender Cliff-Brake
Evergreen Wood-Fern
Walking-Leaf
Pinnatifid Spleenwort
Sensitive Fern

AMERICAN MAIDEN-HAIR.

ADIANTUM PEDATUM, Linnæus.
American Maiden-hair.

Adiantum pedatum:—Root-stock creeping, scaly, and copiously rooting; stalks scattered, a foot or more high, dark-brown and polished, forked at the top; fronds six to fifteen inches broad, membranaceous, smooth, spreading nearly horizontally, composed of several (six to fourteen) slender divisions radiating from the outer side of the recurved branches of the stalk, and bearing numerous oblong or triangular-oblong short-stalked pinnules having the lower margin entire and often slightly concave, the base parallel with the polished hairlike rachis, the upper margin lobed or cleft and bearing a few oblong-lunate or transversely linear reflexed involucres; sporangia on the inner surface of the involucres (as in all _Adianta_), borne on the extended apices of the free forking veinlets, which proceed from a principal vein closely parallel to the lower margin of the pinnule.

_Adiantum pedatum_, Linnæus, Sp. Pl., p. 1557.—Thunberg, Flora Japonica,
p. 339.—Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 121.—Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p. 107, t.
115.—Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p. 438.—Michaux, Fl. Bor. Am., ii., p.
263.—Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept., ii., p. 670.—Torrey, Fl. of N. Y., ii.,
p. 487.—Gray, Manual.—Ruprecht, Distrib. Crypt. Vasc., in Imp.
Ross., p. 49.—Hooker, Sp. Fil., ii., p. 28.—Brackenridge, Filices
of the U. S. Expl. Exped., p. 100.—Eaton, in Parry’s Exped. to
Japan, ii., p. 329.—Maximowicz, Primitiæ Fl. Amurensis, p.
341.—Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 47; Prolusio Fl. Japon. in
Ann. Mus. Bot. Lugd.-Batav., iii., p. 171.—Hooker & Baker, Syn.
Fil., p. 125.—Milde, Fil. Eur. et Atl., p. 31.—Keyserling, Gen.
Adiantum, in Mem. Acad. Petrop., ser. vii., xxii., No. 2, pp. 5,
28.

_Adiantum Americanum_, Cornutus, Canad. Pl. Hist., p. 7, t. 6 (1635).

_Maiden Hair, or Cappellus veneris verus_, Josselyn, New Englands
Rarities Discovered, p. 55 (1672).

_Adiantum fronde supra-decomposita bipartita_, _foliis partialibus
alternis_, _foliolis trapeziformibus obtusis_, Gronovius, Flora
Virginica (1739), p. 123. (For other ancient references see
Linnæus, as quoted above.)

_Adiantum boreale_, Presl, Tent. Pterid., p. 158.

Hab.—In rich, moist woods, especially among rocks. Common from New
Brunswick and Canada southward to Central Alabama, Professor Eugene A.
Smith, and westward to Lake Superior, Wisconsin, and Arkansas. Also in
Utah, California, Oregon, British Columbia, the islands of Alaska,
Kamtschatka, Japan, Mantchooria, and the Himalayan provinces of India.
Ruprecht speaks of specimens from Newfoundland, and Professor Gray
informs me that it exists in De La Pylaie’s collection from that
island.

Description.—The root-stock is elongated and creeping. It is about the diameter of a goose-quill, is covered with minute ovate scales, roots copiously from beneath and along the sides, and produces fronds from the right and left sides alternately. The stalks are usually from a foot to fifteen inches high, and from half a line to a line in thickness. When very young, they bear a few scattered narrow scales; but these soon fall off, leaving minute pointed scars. The mature stalk is roundish in section, the convexity being greatest on the side which corresponds to the under surface of the frond. The two convexities, anterior and posterior, are separated by two obscure angles or ridges, which extend the whole length of the stalk. The anterior, or flatter, convex surface is nearly black, while the other side is a dark purplish brown. The fibro-vascular bundle is U-shaped near the base of the stalk; but higher up it is more like a broad, open V; and just below the forking of the stalk it separates into two portions. The two branches of the stalk diverge at an angle of about fifty degrees, and rise obliquely, gracefully recurving till they nearly meet again. From the outer side of the curve each branch sends out from two to seven slender diverging branchlets, which are the rachises of the pinnæ. The branchlets nearest the forking of the stalk are from four to fifteen inches long, those more remote successively shorter. Thus the whole frond is from five or six to fifteen or eighteen inches broad, and, while somewhat funnel-form in the centre, radiates nearly horizontally towards the circumference. A pressed specimen can give but little idea of its graceful position.

The pinnules, or leaflets, are from six to twelve lines long, and three or four broad, and are placed alternately on the rachises of the pinnæ. They are very numerous, seldom fewer than twelve on each side of one of the middle (or lower) rachises, and in large fronds sometimes as many as forty on each side. The outer rachises bear fewer and fewer pinnules, and the outermost of even a very large frond will not have more than eight or ten on each side. They are attached to the rachis by a very short and slender stalk. Their usual form is dimidiate-oblong; that is, they appear as if cut in two longitudinally, and the lower half removed, so that the lower edge is entire, and straight, or often slightly hollowed; the base, or edge nearest the rachis, is also straight and entire; it is parallel with the rachis, or even overlaps it a little; the upper edge is more or less lobed or incised, but in general nearly parallel with the lower, and the end is rounded and slightly lobed. The point of attachment is, of course, at the angle between the lower and basal edges. The terminal pinnule of each pinna, and the basal one, which, indeed, very often proceeds from one of the recurved branches _just below_ the origin of the pinna, are broadly cuneate or transversely oblong in shape, the two sides which meet at the point of attachment being equal; and the few pinnules near the basal one are shorter and more triangular than the middle ones. The texture is delicately membranaceous, but elastic; the color is a lively green, and both surfaces are very smooth. The upper surface appears to be destitute of stomata; and this may be the reason why water will not adhere to the pinnules, but either falls off, or stands in spheroids ready to fall. The veins are free: in the symmetrical basal and apical pinnules the veinlets fork repeatedly from the very base; but in the oblong middle pinnules there is a faint principal vein running close to the lower edge; and from this the veinlets diverge obliquely, and fork about three times before reaching the superior margin. The incisions of the superior margin are usually very narrow, and extend only to about one-third of the breadth of the pinnule; but in some specimens from California and Oregon they are wider and considerably deeper. The lobes are from four to six or seven in number: in sterile fronds they are minutely toothed at the end; but in the commoner fertile fronds they are reflexed and changed in character, so as to form somewhat crescent-shaped or transversely elongated involucres of a pale-brownish color. The tips of the veinlets extend into these involucres, and bear the sporangia on the under or inner surface. In this peculiarity is the essential generic character of _Adiantum_. The spores of this species are spheroid-tetrahedral, the three radiating angles marked with slender vittæ, or bands. They are mature in the latter part of summer; but the fronds remain until frost, often changing from green to variegated shades of brown.

There do not seem to be any well-marked variations in this fern. Ruprecht has a “var. _Aleuticum_,” the _Ad. boreale_ of Presl, separated mainly on account of its smaller size and fewer parts.

The genus _Adiantum_ contains eighty-three species, according to Mr. Baker’s estimate; but this number is reduced to sixty-seven by the more recent and very careful recension of Keyserling. The species vary in form from a simple and reniform frond an inch or two in diameter to others with ample tripinnate and even quadripinnate fronds. The species with distinctly bipartite and radiated fronds are _Ad. patens_, _hispidulum_, and _fiabellulatum_. _A. patens_ is found in Mexico and Central America. It is a smaller plant than _A. pedatum_, and has deeply-sunken reniform involucres. The other two occur in South-eastern Asia, the _hispidulum_ extending to Africa and to New Zealand, and the _flabellulatum_ to Japan: the former has hispid surfaces and small roundish involucres; and the latter has rusty-fibrillose rachises, coriaceous pinnules, and transversely oblong sub-confluent involucres. _Ad. patens_ follows the form and branching of our fern very closely; but the two Old-World species often depart from it, and show a tendency to develop branches on one or other of the longest pinnæ, thus indicating an approach towards a pyramidal structure of the frond.

The remaining _Adianta_ of the United States are _Ad. Capillus-Veneris_ (Linnæus), found from North Carolina to California; _Ad. emarginatum_ (Hooker), which is the _Ad. Chilense_ of American botanists, but not of Kaulfuss, found in California and Oregon; and _Ad. tricholepis_ (Fée), which occurs in Texas and California, and extends southwards to Central America.

The American Maiden-hair is easily cultivated, and will grow very freely either in a shaded corner of a garden or in the house, and is perhaps more elegant and graceful than any other of our ferns, the climbing-fern scarcely excepted. Josselyn evidently mistook it for the Venus-hair, one of the chief ingredients in a syrup which was formerly a famous remedy for nearly all ailments, and said, “The Apothecaries for shame now will substitute _Wall-Rue_ no more for Maiden Hair, since it grows in abundance in _New-England_, from whence they may have good store.”

Mr. Emerton’s figure is taken from a living plant, and shows the frond
as it appears before it has been flattened in a collector’s portfolio.

OSTRICH-FERN.

ONOCLEA STRUTHIOPTERIS, Hoffmann.
Ostrich-Fern.

Onoclea Struthiopteris:—Caudex short, thick, erect, emitting slender subterranean stolons; stalks stout, a few inches to a foot long, chaffy at the base; fronds standing in a vase-like crown, dimorphous; sterile ones one to ten feet high, herbaceo-membranaceous, broadly lanceolate, narrowed from the middle to the base, abruptly short-acuminate, pinnate; pinnæ very many, sessile, the lowest ones sinuate and deflexed, the rest three to eight inches long, five to nine lines wide, linear-lanceolate, acuminate, deeply pinnatifid into numerous close-placed oblong obtuse entire segments provided with a midvein and several simple veinlets on each side; fertile fronds in the middle of the crown or vase, much shorter than the sterile, rigid, contracted, narrowed at the base, pinnate; pinnæ one to two inches long, crowded, obliquely ascending, linear, obtuse, sub-entire or pinnately lobed, the lobes one or two lines long and broad, the margins much recurved, and the whole pinna forming a somewhat articulated pod-like body; veinlets of the fertile segments few, soriferous on the back; receptacle elevated; indusium very delicate, lacerate-toothed, half surrounding the sorus; sporangia at length confluent and filling the fertile pinnæ.

_Onoclea Struthiopteris_, Hoffmann, “Deutschlands Flora, p. 11
(1795).”—Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 111.—Weber & Mohr, Taschenbuch, p.
47, t. iv., f. 3, 4.—Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p. 97, t.
105.—Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 97, t. xvii., f. 11-15.—Milde,
Fil. Eur. et Atlant., p. 154.

_Onoclea nodulosa_, Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p. 97, t. 104 (Perhaps also of
Michaux, but this is still uncertain).

_Onoclea Germanica_, Hooker, Sp. Fil., iv., p. 161.—Hooker & Baker, Syn.
Fil., p. 46.

_Osmunda Struthiopteris_, Linnæus, Sp. Pl., p. 1522.

_Struthiopteris Germanica_, Willdenow, “Enum, p. 1071;” Sp. Pl., v., p.
288.—Link, Fil. Hort. Berol., p. 38.—Hooker, Fl. Bor.-Am., ii., p.
262.—Torrey, Fl. New York, ii., p. 486.—Gray, Manual, ed. i., p.
623, etc.—Koch, Syn. Fl. Germ. et Helv., ed. iii., p.
739.—Williamson, Fern-Etchings, t. 44.

_Struthiopteris Pennsylvanica_, Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p. 289.—Pursh,
Fl. Am. Sept., ii., p. 266.—Torrey, Compendium, p. 385.—Bigelow,
Fl. Boston., ed. iii., p. 421.

_Struthiopteris_, the genus only, Willdenow, in Berl. Mag., 1809, p. 160.

Hab.—Low grounds, especially in fine alluvial soil subject to the
overflow of rivers; from the Saskatchewan and Lake Winnipeg to New
Brunswick, and southward to Pennsylvania and Illinois. Mentioned by
Alexander Braun as coming from Arkansas. From Lapland to Sicily, and
eastward to the Amoor region, Sachalin and Kamtschatka. Not known in
the western parts of either Europe or America.

Description:—The ostrich-fern is one of our finest ferns, being surpassed in grandeur only by _Acrostichum aureum_, _Woodwardia radicans_, and perhaps _Osmunda regalis_. The plant is propagated chiefly by long and slender stolons, bearing appressed rudimentary stalk-bases. These stolons are said by Sachs to originate from buds formed on the stalks near the base: they run underground for several inches or a foot, and at the end rise to the surface and there thicken into a short erect caudex, covered by imbricating stalk-bases, and throwing up from the apex a grand vase-like circle of foliage, which is often higher than a man’s head, and sometimes extends above his utmost reach.

The stalks are seldom over a foot long: they are flattened, blackish, and chaffy at the base, but above ground they are green, drying dull-brown, somewhat four-sided, and deeply channelled in front, when dried furrowed on the sides also. They contain two flattened fibro-vascular bundles. The stalks of the sterile fronds are rather longer than the others, but more rigid, and remain erect till the second year.

The sterile fronds are oblong-lanceolate in outline, gradually narrowed to the base from near the middle and abruptly short acuminate. The pinnæ are usually of nearly equal breadth from the base to beyond the middle. They are pinnatifid to within a line of the midrib into numerous oblong and obtuse segments, the veins of which are free, simple and pinnately arranged on a midvein.

The fertile fronds are produced late in the summer, and are contracted, much shorter than the others, and very rigid. The pinnæ are sometimes nearly entire, and in other examples pinnately lobed. The margins are very much recurved, so that the pinnæ are pod-like, and either sub-cylindrical or somewhat moniliform. The venation is free, and the sori are dorsal on the veins. Mr. Faxon writes: “The indusium can be detected only when the fertile frond is very young, and appears as a very delicate, lacerate membrane, attached at the base of the receptacle, and serving to separate the sorus from its neighbors. I have not found it in any case hood-like as in _O. sensibilis_. The sori are quickly confluent, and all trace of the indusium is soon lost. The membranaceous edge of the transformed fertile pinna is attached near the bases of the inferior sori and a fold is usually found pressed against the sori as seen in the drawing (Fig. 3). This is usually ruptured, so as to leave a portion attached at the base of the sorus, and must not be mistaken for the true indusium, which is within.”

The sporangia have twenty-six or twenty-eight articulations of the ring. The spores are dark-colored and ovoid.

Imperfectly fertile fronds are often found, which are analogous to the “_obtusilobata_” condition of _O. sensibilis_.

ALPINE BEECH-FERN.
FRAGRANT WOOD-FERN.

PHEGOPTERIS ALPESTRIS, Mettenius.
Alpine Beech-Fern.

Phegopteris alpestris:—Root-stock short and thick, erect or oblique; stalks sub-terminal, four to ten inches long, bearing a few brown spreading scales near the base; fronds one to two feet long, oblong-lanceolate, membranaceous, smooth, pinnate with delicately bi-pinnatifid deltoid-lanceolate pinnæ, the lower ones distant, and decreasing moderately; pinnules ovate-oblong or oblong-lanceolate, doubly incised and toothed; sori small, rounded, naked, usually copious on all or all but the lowest pinnæ.

_Phegopteris alpestris_, Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 83; Phegopteris,
p. 10.

_Polypodium alpestre_, Hoppe, “in Spreng. Syst. Veg., iv., par. ii., p.
320.”—Koch, Syn. Fl. Germ., “ed. 2, p. 974;” ed. 3, p. 731.—Moore,
Nat. Pr. Brit. Ferns, t. vii.—Hooker & Arnott, Brit. Fl., ed. 7, p.
582.—Hooker, Brit. Ferns, t. vi.; Sp. Fil., iv., p. 251.—Hooker &
Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 311.

_Aspidium alpestre_, Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 421.—Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p.
58, t. 60.

_Asplenium alpestre_, Mettenius, Asplenium, p. 198, t. vi., figs. 1-6.

_Pseudathyrium alpestre_, Newman, “Phytologist, iv., p. 370;” Hist. Brit.
Ferns, ed. iii., p. 200.

_Athyrium alpestre_, “Nylander;” Milde, Fil. Eu. & Atl., p. 53.

_Polypodium rhæticum_, Linnæus, Sp. Pl., p. 1552, _fide_ Schkuhr, l. c.;
but Moore thinks the plant not the same.

_Aspidium rhæticum_, Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 59.—Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p.
280.

Hab.—Among rocks at high elevations; on Lassen’s Peak, Mount Shasta,
Pyramid Peak, Mount Rose, and other high points in the Sierra of
California, Brewer, Lemmon, Muir; Cascade Mountains of British
Columbia, Lyall. In the Alps and the mountains of Northern Europe; also
in the Caucasus, and in Asia Minor.

Description.—The root-stock is rather short, but branching, and seems to form great entangled masses. The fronds stand in a crown or circle, rising from the end of the root-stock, which is made thick and heavy with the chaffy bases of former stalks. Mr. Lemmon writes thus: “It grows in a limited locality, so far as I know, near the summit of Mount Rose, near Webber Lake, and say at an elevation of 7,000 feet; lat. 39½° N. Fronds collected into a large mass four feet across, short at the circumference, in the centre three feet high; most of them fertile, and densely so, as in the specimen sent.”

The stalks are usually but a few (four to six) inches long, and in the dried specimens of a brownish straw-color, becoming nearly black at the base. They bear a few large ferruginous chaffy scales, and are deeply channelled and furrowed. The fibro-vascular system of the stalk is altered by contraction in drying, but apparently agrees with Dr. Milde’s description of _Athyrium_: “There are two oblong peripheric bundles in the _base_ of the stalk, which, at the base of the lamina, are united into one of a horse-shoe shape by an arc parallel to the back of the stalk.” In the middle of a stalk from one of the California specimens I find two systems of ducts, one on each side of the stalk, and the two united by a curved and contorted border of firm blackish tissue (sclerenchyma).

The fronds are from one to two feet long, and from three to six inches wide. In general shape they are oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, and slightly narrowed at the base. The texture is softly membranaceous, and both surfaces are smooth. The primary pinnæ are numerous, the lower ones gradually farther apart: their shape is lanceolate from a broad base. They are usually twice pinnatifid, the pinnules being connected by a very narrow foliaceous border along the midribs. The ultimate segments are sharply toothed. The fruit-dots are very abundant, and usually are found on all the pinnæ. They are placed on the back of the free veinlets, and are apparently devoid of indusium; though Dr. Mettenius has discovered on young fronds an exceedingly delicate and fugitive indusium, resembling in some degree that of _Asplenium § Athyrium_. Accordingly, in his later work, he referred the species to the genus _Asplenium_, placing it next to _A. Filix-fœmina_. Milde, in his work on the ferns of Europe and Atlantis, sought to re-establish Athyrium as a genus, and placed this fern in it, saying “sori ... rotundi, primum breviter oblongi indusio fugaci minutissimo ciliato instructi.” The spores are ovoid, and apparently covered with anastomosing raised lines. Those I have examined are fuscous-brown, but Milde says “sub-nigræ verrucosæ.”

There is a European var. _flexilis_, with very narrow, nearly sessile fronds, and the pinnæ often deflexed, which has not been observed in America.

Undoubtedly the greatest resemblance of this fern is to the lady-fern, _Asplenium Filix-fœmina_; but that species has a very well-developed indusium, while the minute objects delineated by Mettenius scarcely deserve the name.

The stalks are clearly continuous with the root-stock; and for this reason the plant is plainly not a _Polypodium_, whatever else it may finally be determined to be.

ASPIDIUM FRAGRANS, Swartz.
Fragrant Wood-Fern.

Aspidium fragrans:—Root-stock short and stout, very chaffy, with ample bright-brown glossy scales, which also abound on the short clustered stalks, and extend, diminishing in size, nearly to the top of the frond; fronds rigid-membranaceous, glandular, aromatic, four to ten inches long, six to twenty-four lines wide, lanceolate, acuminate, narrowed from the middle to the base, bipinnate; pinnæ numerous, oblong-lanceolate; pinnules many, one to two lines long, oblong, obtuse, adnate by a decurrent base, pinnately incised with very minute crenated teeth, or in smaller fronds nearly entire, the back nearly hidden by the large thin imbricating indusia, which are orbicular with a narrow sinus, and more or less toothed and glandular around the margin.

_Aspidium fragrans_, Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 51.—Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p.
253.—Hooker, in “Parry’s 2d Voy., App., p. 410;” Fl. Bor. Am., p.
410.—Ruprecht, Distr. Crypt. Vasc. Imp. Ross., p. 35.—Mettenius,
Aspid., p. 56.—Gray, Manual, ed. 2, p. 598.—Milde, Fil. Eur. et
Atlant., p. 117.

_Polypodium fragrans_, Linnæus, Sp. Pl., p. 1550.

_Polystichum fragrans_, Ledebour, “Fl. Ross., iv., p. 514.”—Maximowicz,
Prim. Fl. Amur., p. 339.

_Dryopteris fragrans_, Schott, Gen. Fil., Observ. sub Polysticho.

_Nephrodium fragrans_, Richardson, “App. to Frankl. Journ., p.
753.”—Hooker & Greville, Ic. Fil., t. lxx.—Hooker, Sp. Fil., iv.,
p. 122.—Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 275.

_Dryopteris rubum idæum spirans_, Ammann, “Ruth., p. 251.”

Hab.—In crevices of shaded cliffs, and on mossy rocks, especially near
cascades and rivulets, from Northern New England to Wisconsin, and
northward to Arctic America. Also in the Caucasus, and in Siberia,
Mantchooria, and Kamtschatka. Special American localities are Mount
Kineo, Maine, A. H. and C. E. Smith; at Berlin Falls, the “Alpine
Cascade,” and the “Gulch,” all near the White Mountains, H. Willey;
Mount Mansfield, Vermont, C. G. Pringle; Lake Avalanche, Adirondack
Mountains, New York, C. H. Peck; Falls of St. Croix, Wisconsin, C. C.
Parry, and on the Penokee Iron Range, in the same State, Lapham;
Saguenay River, Canada, D. A. Watt. It is apparently more common
farther north: Sitka, Iliuliuk, Unalaska, Arakamtchetchene, Kotzebue
Bay, Igloolik, Rittenbenk in Greenland, and several other places, are
recorded as stations for it.

Description.—The root-stock is rather stout, ascending or erect; and its apparent thickness is much increased by the persistent bases of stalks, which also give it a dense covering of broad bright-brown chaffy scales. The fronds, frequently to the number of six or eight, besides old and shrivelled ones, stand in a crown at the upper end of the root-stocks, resting on stalks from one to four inches long, which are usually very chaffy, the chaff continued along the rachis and midribs, though composed of smaller scales than those lower down. The fronds are from three or four to ten inches in length; and the greatest breadth, just above the middle, is from one-fifth to one-sixth of the length. The outline is exactly lanceolate, as the apex is acute, and the lower part gradually tapering to a somewhat narrowed base. The fronds are delicately, but densely, bipinnate. In a frond nine inches long there are about thirty primary pinnæ on each side, and in one of the middle pinnæ about ten oblong-ovate obtuse pinnately-incised pinnules on each side. The pinnules are from a line to two lines long, and are adnate to the secondary rachis by a more or less decurrent base. In large fronds the teeth of the pinnules are again crenately toothed; but in small specimens the pinnules themselves are entire, or but slightly toothed. Two sterile fronds collected by Professor M. W. Harrington, in Iliuliuk, Alaska, are broadly ovate-lanceolate in outline, and have acute primary pinnæ; and other specimens, some from Eastern Canada, collected by Mr. Watt, and some from Northern Wisconsin, collected by Mr. Lapham, are much slenderer and less scaly than usual. This is the var. β of Hooker. Usually the fronds are rather rigid, full-green above, a little paler beneath, and both surfaces, together with the rachis, especially the canal along the upper side of the rachis, are dotted with very minute pellucid pale amber-colored glands. The fronds commonly fruit very fully, even the lowest pinna bearing sporangia. The indusia are very large, thin, orbicular, with a narrow sinus, more or less ragged or toothed and gland-bearing at the margin, and are so dense as to overlap each other, and nearly conceal the back of the pinnules. The spores are ovoid, and have a minutely verrucose or warty surface.

The pleasant odor of the plant remains many years in the herbarium. The early writers compare the fragrance to that of raspberries, and Milde repeats the observation. Hooker and Greville thought it “not unlike that of the common primrose.” Maximowicz states that the odor is sometimes lacking. Milde quotes Redowsky as saying that the Yakoots of Siberia use the plant in place of tea; and, having tried the experiment myself, I can testify to the not unpleasant and very fragrant astringency of the infusion.

The illustration is taken from a plant collected by Mr. D. A. Watt on
the Saguenay River, in Canada.

GOLDIE’S WOOD-FERN.

ASPIDIUM GOLDIANUM, Hooker.
Goldie’s Wood-Fern.

Aspidium Goldianum:—Root-stock stout, ascending, chaffy; stalks about a foot long, chaffy at the base with large ovate-acuminate ferruginous or deep-lustrous-brown scales; fronds standing in a crown, one to two and a half feet long, broadly ovate, or the fertile ones oblong-ovate, chartaceo-membranaceous, nearly smooth, bright-green above, a little paler beneath, pinnate; pinnæ broadly lanceolate, five to eight inches long, one to two and a half broad, usually, especially the lowest ones, narrower at the base than in the middle, pinnatifid almost to the midrib; segments numerous, oblong-linear, often slightly falcate, crenate, or serrate with sharp incurved teeth; veins free, mostly with three veinlets, the lowest superior veinlets bearing near their base the large sori very near the midvein; indusium large, flat, smooth, orbicular with a narrow sinus.

_Aspidium Goldianum_, Hooker, in Goldie’s Acc. of rare Canad. Pl. in
Edinb. Phil. Journ., vi., p. 333; Fl. Am.-Bor., ii., p.
260.—Torrey, Fl. New York, ii., p. 495.—Gray, Manual, ed. ii., p.
598, ed. v., p. 666.—Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 92; Aspid., p.
56.—Williamson, Ferns of Kentucky, p. 95, t. xxxiv.

_Nephrodium Goldianum_, Hooker & Greville, Ic. Fil. t. cii.—Hooker, Sp.
Fil., iv., p. 121.—Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 272.

_Lastrea Goldiana_, Presl, Tent. Pterid., p. 76.—Lawson, in Canad. Nat.
i., p. 282.

_Dryopteris Goldiana_, Gray, Manual, ed. i., p. 631.

_Aspidium Filix-mas_, Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept., ii., p. 662.

Hab.—Deep, rocky woods, from Canada and Maine to Indiana, Virginia and
Kentucky. It is also named in local catalogues of the flora of
Wisconsin and Kansas. Not known in the Old World.

Description:—The root-stock is creeping or ascending, several inches long, and nearly an inch thick. This thickness is made up, in considerable part, by the adherent bases of old stalks; the stalks being perfectly continuous with the root-stock, and so much crowded as to overlap each other. When fresh the root-stock is fleshy, and a longitudinal section of it shows that its substance passes so gradually into that of the stalk-bases, that no point of separation or distinction between the two can be selected. This kind of root-stock is found also in _Aspidium spinulosum_ and its allies, in _A. Filix-mas_, _A. cristatum_, _A. marginale_, _A. Nevadense_, _A. fragrans_, and _A. rigidum_, and in very many exotic species, and it is very unlike the root-stocks of _A. Thelypteris_, _A. Noveboracense_, and _A. unitum_, species which have been already described and figured in the present work. The parenchymatous portion of the root-stock is loaded with starch in very minute grains, as may be easily proved by adding a drop of alcoholic solution of iodine to a thin slice of the root-stock placed under a microscope, when the grains will be presently seen to turn blue, the recognized sign of starch. This abundance of nutritive material in the root-stock enables it to send up a fine circle of large fronds in the proper season of the year.

The stalks are from nine to fifteen inches long, rather stout, green when living, but straw-color when dried for the herbarium, in which condition they are furrowed in front and along the two sides. At the base they are covered with large ovate-acuminate brown or sometimes dark and shining scales. Mixed in with these are smaller and narrower chaffy scales, which also are found along the whole length of the stalk and the rachis. The cross-section of the stalk shows two rather large roundish fibro-vascular bundles on the anterior side, and three, the middle one largest, at the back.

Several fronds are usually seen growing from a root-stock, those produced early in the season commonly sterile, and shorter than the others. The full-grown and fertile fronds are often two feet or two and a half feet long, and about one foot broad. The general outline is oblong-ovate, the lowest pinnæ being scarcely, if at all, shorter than those in the middle of the frond. There are usually about eight or ten full-sized pinnæ each side of the rachis, besides the gradually diminishing pinnæ near the acute pinnatifid apex. The larger pinnæ are from five to eight inches long, the middle ones an inch or an inch and a half wide, but the lowest ones two inches and a half broad. The greatest breadth of the pinnæ is usually near the middle or even a little above the middle, so that they are slightly narrowed towards the base; and in this character lies one of the readiest distinctions between this fern and those large forms of _A. cristatum_, which have occasionally been mistaken for _A. Goldianum_; for in that other species the greatest breadth of the pinnæ is uniformly at the base.

The segments of the pinnæ are from fifteen to twenty each side the midrib: the incisions do not extend quite to the midrib, so that the latter is narrowly winged, and the pinnæ are pinnatifid rather than pinnate. The segments are from nine to eighteen lines long, and about three lines wide: they are set rather obliquely on the midrib, and are often slightly curved upwards, or falcate. They are obtuse or somewhat acute, and have the edges crenate, or more or less distinctly serrate with sharp incurved teeth.

The veins are free, and are pinnately forked into from three to five slender oblique veinlets, of which the lowest one on the upper side is the longest, and bears a fruit-dot near its base. The fruit-dots are seldom or never found on the two or three lowest pinnæ, but on the rest they are arranged in a row each side the midveins of the segments, and much nearer the midveins than the margins. There are in all from ten to twenty to a segment.

The indusia are larger than in most of the related species, flat, perfectly smooth, orbicular with a very narrow sinus, and slightly erose-crenulate on the margin. In the second edition of Gray’s Manual it is said that the indusium is “often orbicular without a distinct sinus, as in _Polystichum_;” and it is sometimes difficult to see the sinus, but I think it is rather because the sides of it overlap than because there is none. The sporangia have a ring of from fifteen to twenty articulations. The spores are ovoid, and somewhat roughened on the surface.

This fern is one of the very finest and largest of the species of the Eastern States, being surpassed in these respects only by the osmundas and the ostrich-fern. The fronds are smooth, deep-green in color, slightly paler beneath, and of a rather firm papery texture. Unlike _A. Filix-mas_ and _A. cristatum_ the fronds wither in the fall of the year, and are not “half-evergreen.”

It was collected by Pursh on his visit to America in the early part of this century, the precise locality not known,—in the Flora he says “New Jersey to Virginia,”—and was by him referred to _A. Filix-mas_. His specimens, preserved in the herbarium at Kew, are partly _A. Goldianum_ and partly _A. cristatum_. Mr. John Goldie’s discovery was made near Montreal, about the year 1818, and the excellent figure in Hooker & Greville’s Icones Filicum was probably taken from one of his specimens, or perhaps from live plants originally brought by him to the Botanic Garden at Glasgow.

Though not one of our commonest Ferns, this is very abundant in certain localities:—Mrs. Roy sends it from Owen Sound, Canada; Dr. Bumstead got it in Smuggler’s Notch, Mt. Mansfield, Vermont; Mr. Frost has a fine station on Mt. Wantastiquet, New Hampshire; I find it plentiful and fine in the deep ravine called Roaring Brook, in Cheshire, Connecticut; Professor Porter has it from Burgoon’s Gap, in the Alleghany Mountains of Pennsylvania; Mrs. McCall, near Madison, Ohio; Mr. Williamson “found it in great abundance near the Little Rockcastle River, in Laurel County,” Kentucky, and Mr. Curtis has twice sent me fine specimens, with very dark scales at the base of the stalks, from the Peaks of Otter, Virginia.

The name is sometimes written _Goldieanum_; I give the name as it occurs in Goldie’s original paper in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal.

The specimen drawn by Mr. Faxon is from Vermont, and is represented
about two-thirds of the natural size.

WEBBY LIP-FERN.
EATON’S LIP-FERN.

CHEILANTHES TOMENTOSA, Link.
Webby Lip-Fern.

Cheilanthes tomentosa:—Root-stock short, chaffy with glossy subulate scales; stalks tufted, four to eight inches long, erect, rather stout, clothed with soft woolly pale-ferruginous hairs, intermixed with others which are flattened and decidedly paleaceous; fronds eight to fifteen inches long, oblong-lanceolate, webby-tomentose with slender brownish-white obscurely articulated hairs, especially beneath, tripinnate; primary and secondary pinnæ oblong or ovate-oblong; ultimate pinnules closely placed, but distinct, roundish-obovate, sessile, or adnate to the tertiary rachis, one-half to three-fourths of a line long, the terminal ones twice longer; involucres whitish, continuous round the pinnule and very narrow.

_Cheilanthes tomentosa_, Link, “Hort. Berol., ii., p. 42.”—Fil. Hort.
Berol., p. 65.—Kunze, in Sill. Journ., July, 1848, p. 87; in
Linnæa, xxiii., p. 245.—Gray, Manual, ed. ii., p. 592.—Mettenius,
Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 50; Cheilanthes, p. 37.—Eaton, in Chapman’s
Flora, p. 590; Ferns of the South-West, p. 314.—Baker, Syn. Fil.,
p. 140.—Williamson, Ferns of Kentucky, p. 49, t. xi.

_Myriopteris tomentosa_, Fée, Gen. Fil., p. 149, t. xii., _A._, f. 2 (a
pinnule).—Fournier, Pl. Mex., Crypt., p. 125 (species exclusa).

_Notholæna tomentosa_, J. Smith.

_Cheilanthes Bradburii_, Hooker, Sp. Fil., ii., p. 97, t. cix.,
_B._—Mettenius, Cheilanthes, p. 37.

Hab.—Sandstone rocks along the French Broad River, in North Carolina
and Eastern Tennessee, Professor Gray, Mr. Canby, Rev. D. R. Shoop,
Professor Bradley, etc. Texas, Lindheimer, No. 743. Mountains of
Virginia (?) and Kentucky, according to Gray’s Manual, but Mr.
Williamson has hitherto failed to find it in the last named State. The
Kew herbarium contains, besides Lindheimer’s plant, a very imperfect
specimen marked “Manitou Rocks, 250 miles up the Missouri, Bradbury,”
and good specimens from Texas collected by Drummond. Kunze states that
it was raised [at the Leipzig garden?] from Mexican spores, and that
Rugel collected a few specimens in North Carolina; but Fournier rejects
it as a Mexican species.

Description:—This is decidedly the largest plant among all our North American species of Cheilanthes, some of the tallest specimens measuring nearly two feet in total length. The root-stock is short, and disposed to branch. It is thickly clad with fine subulate chaff, many of the scales with a dark and rigid midnerve, and others lighter-colored and without midnerve. The plant evidently grows in dense masses. The stalks are clustered, each root-stock sending up a large number of them. They are rigid, wiry, terete and covered with grayish-tawny spreading soft woolly hairs, intermixed with a few which are broader and decidedly paleaceous, especially towards the base. The section is round, and shows a firm exterior sclerenchymatous sheath, within which is a broad circle of brownish parenchyma, and in the middle a single fibro-vascular bundle obtusely triangular in shape, but with the sides slightly hollowed in.

The fronds vary from a few inches to over a foot in length; their general shape is ovate-lanceolate, or oblong-lanceolate; they are in general of a grayish color from the abundance of a fine entangled tomentum, which covers both surfaces, though it is a little thinner and whiter on the upper surface. The large fronds are fully tripinnate. The primary pinnæ are oblong-ovate, short-stalked, one to nearly two inches long, and a half to three-fourths of an inch broad at the base. They are either opposite or alternate, the lower ones, as usual, more separated than those that are higher up on the frond. The secondary pinnæ are close-placed, oblong, obtuse, and again pinnated into from two to five minute rounded or rounded-obovate sessile or adnate-decurrent pinnules on each side, besides a terminal oval pinnule which is twice as large as the lateral ones. These ultimate pinnules are innumerable, and it is in allusion to their very great number in this and the allied species that the generic name _Myriopteris_ was proposed by Fée for the group.

The whole margin of the pinnule is recurved, and from the edge of it is produced a very delicate whitish involucre, the whole forming a sort of pouch, as is admirably represented in the figure given by Fée. The sporangia have a ring of about twenty articulations: Fée says there are vittate or knotted hairs growing among them. The spores are rather large, amber-colored, globose, and delicately trivittate. According to Fée, when placed in water they burst and dissolve into excessively minute sporules.

There can be no doubt that our plant is the _Cheilanthes tomentosa_ of Link. Kunze, who knew Link’s plant perfectly well, referred the North Carolina specimens to it; and Dr. Mettenius, who succeeded to the care of the Leipzig garden, favored me with specimens which are precisely the same thing as the plant here described. But none of the Mexican collectors seem to have found the species, and it may be legitimately queried whether the commonly reported origin of Link’s specimens is the true one. The _Cheilanthes tomentosa_ of the _Species Filicum_ is partly this plant, but mainly the species next to be described.

CHEILANTHES EATONI, Baker.
Eaton’s Lip-Fern.

Cheilanthes Eatoni: Root-stock short, chaffy with rather long slenderly acuminate glossy scales; stalks clustered, four to eight inches long, erect, wiry, covered, as are the rachis and its divisions, with narrow shining pale-ferruginous scales and paleaceous hairs intermixed; fronds four to nine inches long, oblong-lanceolate, pubescent above with whitish entangled woolly hairs, beneath covered with a heavy matted ferruginous tomentum, and more or less scaly, especially when young, tripinnate; pinnæ ovate-oblong, lower ones rather distant, upper ones crowded; ultimate pinnules contiguous, half a line long, rounded, but narrowed at the base, the terminal ones often twice larger and more decidedly obovate; margin of the pinnules continuously recurved, the edge slightly membranaceous.

_Cheilanthes Eatoni_, Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 140.—Porter & Coulter,
Synopsis of the Flora of Colorado, p. 153.—Eaton, Ferns of the
South-West, p. 315.

_Cheilanthes tomentosa_, Hooker, Sp. Fil., ii., p. 96 (description and
Texas plant), t. cix., _A._—Eaton, in Botany of the U. S. and
Mexican Boundary Survey, p. 234.

Hab.—Texas and New Mexico, Wright, No. 816; Fendler, No. 1016; Indian
Territory, between Fort Cobb and Fort Arbuckle, Palmer; near Cañon
City, Colorado, Brandegee; from the Rio Grande westward along the Gila
to the Colorado River, Collectors of Mexican Boundary Survey. The kind
of place where this fern has been collected is not recorded, but it
probably grows in the clefts of rocks along the sides and edges of
cañons.

Description:—This fern bears so close a resemblance to _Cheilanthes tomentosa_, that it is not at all surprising that there has been more or less of confusion between the two. It would seem that when writing his account of the genus _Cheilanthes_ for the Species Filicum, Sir W. J. Hooker had, in his collection, no examples of the North Carolina _C. tomentosa_, and could identify it only by Link’s rather imperfect description and Kunze’s remarks in Silliman’s Journal. Having Wright’s specimens of the plant here described, and Gordon’s fern from the Rattene Mountains—a plant not yet satisfactorily identified—he referred them to the species named by Link; and then perceiving with his accustomed delicate discrimination that Lindheimer’s and Bradbury’s plant was distinct from Wright’s, he gave the former the name of _C. Bradburii_. It was not until 1860, when the Ferns for Chapman’s Flora were being prepared, that any one suspected that the _C. Bradburii_ was the true _C. tomentosa_. In 1866, I had an opportunity of explaining the matter to Mr. Baker, then at work on the Synopsis Filicum, and not long after, I was surprised, and I need not say pleased, by finding that he had given to Hooker’s _C. tomentosa_ the name it now bears.

The root-stock is short, assurgent, and chaffy with rather rigid slender-pointed scales, most of them furnished with a dark midnerve. The stalks are tufted, and are perhaps a little slenderer than those of _C. tomentosa_. They are chaffy throughout, but more especially at the base, with narrow pale ferruginous scales, intermixed with still slenderer paleaceous hairs. The section is slightly flattened on the anterior side. The exterior sheath is firm; inside of it is brownish parenchyma, and in the middle a semicircular fibro-vascular bundle, the ducts in the centre of it arranged in a figure much like a letter X.

The fronds are considerably smaller than in _C. tomentosa_. They are similarly oblong-lanceolate and tripinnate, the ultimate pinnules being very numerous and rather more closely crowded than in the other species just referred to. The pubescence is harsher and not so webby on the upper side, and is decidedly heavier and more matted on the under surface. The scales of the branches, or secondary rachises, are broader and shorter than those of the stalk and are very conspicuous in young fronds. In older fronds they fall away, to some extent, and are then less abundant.

The pinnules are rather rounder and less oval than in _C. tomentosa_, and though they are somewhat purse-shaped, the involucre consists almost entirely of the recurved herbaceous margin, the proper whitish and delicately membranous involucre being nearly suppressed.

The spores are sub-globose, amber-colored, faintly trivittate, and have a finely pustulated or granular surface.

In respect to the narrow herbaceous involucre this fern comes nearest to _Cheilanthes lanuginosa_, of Nuttall, figured in “Ferns of North America.” It has, however, much larger fronds; and the copious, though narrow scales of the stalk, as well as the scales of the rachises, will readily distinguish it.

It is among the Ferns which have been cultivated by Hon. J. Warren Merrill, though I am not informed what are its special needs in the way of soil, moisture, etc.

MALE FERN.

ASPIDIUM FILIX-MAS, Swartz.
Male Fern.

Aspidium Filix-mas:—Root-stock short, stout, ascending or erect; stalks rarely over a foot long, very chaffy with large lanceolate-acuminate scales and smaller ones intermixed; fronds standing in a crown, one to three feet long, half-evergreen, firm-membranaceous, broadly oblong-lanceolate, slightly narrowed toward the base, pinnate or sub-bipinnate; pinnæ lanceolate-acuminate from a broad base, pinnatifid almost or rarely quite to the midrib; segments smooth and full-green above, slightly paler and bearing a few little chaffy scales beneath, normally oblong, obtuse or even truncate, slightly toothed, in another form ovate-lanceolate, acutish and pinnately incised; veins free, forked or pinnately branched into from two to five veinlets; sori rather large, nearer the midvein than the margin, commonly occurring only on the lower half or two-thirds of each segment; indusia convex when young, rather firm, smooth or minutely glandular, orbicular-reniform.

_Aspidium Filix-mas_, Swartz, in Schraders Journal, ii., (1800) p. 38;
Syn. Fil., p. 55.—Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p. 45, t. 44.—Willdenow,
Sp. Pl., v., p. 259.—Link, Fil. Hort. Berol., p. 105.—Ruprecht,
Distr. Krypt. Vasc, in Imp. Ross., p. 35.—Kunze, in Sill. Journ.,
July, 1848, p. 83.—Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 92; Aspidium, p.
55.—Eaton, in Gray’s Manual, ed. v., p. 666.—Milde, in Nov. Act.
Acad. Nat. Cur., xxvi., ii., p. 507; Fil. Eur. et Atl., p.
118.—Miquel, Prolusio Fl. Jap., p. 117.

_Polypodium Filix-mas_, Linnæus, Sp. Pl. p. 1551.

_Polystichum Filix-mas_, Roth, “Fl. Germ., iii., p. 82.”—Koch, Syn. Fl.
Germ, et Helv., ed. iii., p. 733.

_Nephrodium Filix-mas_, Richard, “in Desvaux, Mém. Soc. Linn., vi., p.
60.”—Hooker, Brit. Ferns, t. 15; Sp. Fil., iv., p. 117.—Hooker &
Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 272 (excl. vars. γ and δ).

_Dryopteris Filix-mas_, Schott, Gen. Fil.—Newman, Hist. Brit. Ferns, ed.
iii., p. 184.

_Lastrea Filix-mas_, Presl, Tent. Pterid., p. 76.—Moore, Brit. Ferns,
Nat. Pr., t. xiv, xv, xvi, xvii.

Var. _incisum_, Mettenius:—Frond ample, two to three feet long, scantily
chaffy on the rachis; segments rather distant, lanceolate, tapering
to a sub-acute point, incised on the margins with serrated lobules;
indusium rather delicate, in age shrivelling or falling
off.—Aspidium, p. 55; Milde, Fil. Eur. et Atl., p. 120.—_Lastrea
Filix-mas_, var. _incisa_, Moore, l.c.—_Nephrodium Filix-mas_, var.
_affine_, Hooker & Baker. l.c.

Var. _paleaceum_, Mettenius:—Frond ample, two to three feet long, stalk
and rachis very chaffy with ferruginous or blackish scales;
segments oblong, truncate, nearly entire on the margins; indusium
coriaceous, the edges much incurved, sometimes splitting in
two.—Aspidium, p. 55; Milde, Fil. Eur. Atl., p. 121.—_Lastrea
Filix-mas_, var. _paleacea_, Moore, l.c.—_Aspidium paleaceum_, Don,
“Prodr. Fl. Nepal., p. 4;” Fournier, Pl. Mex., Crypt., p. 92.
_Aspidium parallelogrammum_, Kunze, in Linnæa, xiii., p. 146,
etc.—_Nephrodium Filix-mas_, var. _parallelogrammum_, Hooker, Sp.
Fil., iv., p. 116.—_Dichasium parallelogrammum_ and _D.
patentissimum_, Fée, Gen. Fil., p. 302, t. xxiii, _B._—_Lastrea
truncata_, Brackenridge, Fil. of U. S. Expl. Exped., p. 195, t. 27
(admirable).[1]

Hab.—In one form or another, this species occurs in America from
Greenland to Peru, throughout Europe and Asia, in parts of Africa, and
in many islands of the ocean. The ordinary European form corresponding
to Moore’s plate XIV has been collected in British Columbia by Dr.
Lyall, in Keweenaw Peninsula of Northern Michigan by Dr. Robbins, and
in the mountains of Colorado by Messrs. Hall & Harbour and Mr.
Brandegee. Var. _incisum_ was found at the base of calcareous rocks at
Royston Park, Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada, by Mrs. Roy, and in the
mountains of Colorado by Dr. Scovill, for one of whose specimens I am
indebted to D. A. Watt, Esq., of Montreal. Fragments of apparently the
same form have been received from Dakota. The Californian plant
mentioned in Plantæ Hartwegianæ, p. 342, is better regarded as a form
of _Aspidium rigidum_. Var. _paleaceum_ has not been found in either
Canada or the United States, but is well known in Mexico, in Europe, in
Southern Asia, in the Hawaiian Islands, etc.

Description:—This fern has a stout, usually ascending, but sometimes erect, very chaffy root-stock, very much like that of the species last described. It sometimes rises a little above the surface of the ground, forming a short trunk.

The stalks seem to vary a good deal in length, being sometimes only two or three inches long, and at other times over a foot. They are clustered at the growing end of the root-stock, and their bases, which remain long after the rest has perished, are consolidated with the root-stock. The stalks are always more or less chaffy, the chaff mainly confined to the lowest portion in some plants, and in others following the stalk and the rachis to the apex of the frond. The largest scales are sometimes fully an inch long. They are narrowly lanceolate-acuminate, distantly ciliate-denticulate on the margin, and composed of narrow but somewhat sinuous cells. Mixed in with them are smaller scales, from two to four lines long, and more distinctly ciliate-toothed. The color of the scales is different in different specimens, varying from bright golden-brown to ferruginous-brown with a darker spot at the base, and from this to nearly black, especially in the sub-tropical and tropical forms of var. _paleaceum_. Such specimens are sometimes fairly shaggy with the abundance of scales, which are also found, decreasing in number and in size, on the midribs of the pinnæ, and even on the lower surface of the segments. The usual number of fibro-vascular bundles is seven.

The fronds are broadly lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate in outline, usually narrowed a little, or even conspicuously narrowed, at the base, and acute or acuminate at the apex. They are of a full herbaceous green above, a little paler beneath, and of a rather firmly membranaceous, or, in tropical forms, of a sub-coriaceous texture. Their average length is from one to two feet, but fronds three feet long are occasionally seen; and one very fine example of var. _paleaceum_, collected in Chiapas, Mexico, by Dr. Ghiesbreght, is three feet and a half long, exclusive of the stalk.

The pinnæ are sometimes very numerous; as many as forty on each side have been counted on very large fronds, but the number is more commonly less than twenty. They are lanceolate-acuminate in shape, tapering from a broad base to a slender point; in the common form their average breadth at the base is half to three-fourths of an inch, but in var. _incisum_ they are often fully two inches broad at the base. Their length is from three or four inches in the common form to six or seven inches in the largest specimens I have seen. The midrib of the pinnæ is always more or less winged, so that the pinnæ may be said to be pinnatifid, and the segments to be connected by a narrow wing.

The shape of the segments differs in the several varieties; in the type they are very close together, oblong, with a rounded apex, and not very deeply toothed: in var. _paleaceum_ they are also closely-placed, and oblong, but mostly truncate at the apex; and in var. _incisum_ they are much larger and less closely-placed, ovate-lanceolate in shape, and incised with toothed lobes along the sides.

The veins are free, and are forked or alternately divided into from two to five veinlets. The sori are rather large, placed nearer the midvein than the margin, and are rarely produced towards the apex of the segments.

The indusium is orbicular-reniform, and almost always smooth. Its edges are turned downward, enclosing the sporangia, when they are young, and sometimes this convexity is permanent. Rarely the sinus is so deep that the indusium at last becomes divided. The spores are ovoid, and have a muricately roughened surface.

The rhizomes have been used for ages as an anthelmintic, but probably have no greater virtue in this direction than those of many other common species.

TRIFOLIATE CLIFF-BRAKE.
CLAYTON’S CLIFF-BRAKE.
SLENDER CLIFF-BRAKE.

PELLÆA TERNIFOLIA, Link.
Trifoliate Cliff-Brake.

Pellæa ternifolia:—Root-stock short, thick, nodose, chaffy with very narrow dark-brown scales; stalks clustered, purplish-black and polished, three to six inches long; fronds as long as or longer than the stalks, oblong-linear; pinnæ from four to fifteen pairs, all but a few of the highest ones deeply tripartite; segments elongated-oval or linear-obovate, sub-coriaceous, somewhat glaucous beneath, green above, slightly mucronate, the middle one in large fronds indistinctly petiolulate; fertile ones with the edges much recurved; involucre broad, the edge only membranaceous.

_Pellæa ternifolia_, Link, Fil. Hort. Berol., p. 59.—Fée, Gen. Fil., p.
129.—Hooker, Sp. Fil., i., p. 142; Fil. Exot., t. xv.—Fournier, Pl.
Mex., Crypt., p. 118.—Eaton, Ferns of the Southwest, p. 321.

_Pteris ternifolia_, Cavanilles, “Præl. 1801, No. 657.”—Hooker &
Greville, Ic. Fil., t. 126.

_Platyloma ternifolium_, J. Smith.—Brackenridge, Fil. U. S. Ex. Exped.,
p. 94.

_Allosorus ternifolius_, Kunze, in Linnæa, xxiii., p. 220.

_Pteris subverticillata_, Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 103.—Willdenow, Sp. Pl.,
v., p. 375.

Hab.—Texas, Trécul, No. 1334, according to Fournier. New Mexico,
Wright, according to Hooker in _Filices Exoticæ_. The only specimens
from Texas which I have of this species were collected by Dr. Sutton
Hayes, near the headwaters of the Rio Colorado of Texas. It is a common
Mexican species; it is found as far South as Peru, and reap pears in
the Hawaiian Islands.

Description:—This belongs to the same group of species as _P. Wrightiana_, _brachyptera_ and _Ornithopus_. It has the same nodose and scaly root-stock, dark and polished stalk, glaucescent frond and mucronulate pinnules. In Mexico, South America and the Hawaiian Islands it never occurs with more than trifoliolate pinnules, and this is perhaps the best reason for considering _P. Wrightiana_ a distinct species. The pinnæ are tripartite rather than trifoliolate, while in the other fern just referred to, when trifoliolate the odd pinnule is more distinct and usually stalked, a distinction indicated by Hooker, but for which I am more indebted to the accurate discrimination of Mr. Faxon. In more southern localities the fronds are considerably larger than Dr. Hayes’ specimens, and the segments of the pinnæ ampler. In very dry seasons the pinnæ are considerably deflexed. The spores are trivittate as in the related species.

PELLÆA ATROPURPUREA, Link.
Clayton’s Cliff-Brake.

Pellæa atropurpurea:—Root-stock short, knotted, chaffy with very narrow long-pointed soft cinnamon-brown scales; stalks four to eight inches high, terete, wiry, dark-purple or reddish-black, polished or more or less pubescent with paleaceous hairs; fronds six to twelve inches long, ovate or oblong-lanceolate in outline, evergreen, sub-coriaceous, pinnate, usually twice pinnate near the base; rachises smooth or hairy; pinnæ four to twelve pairs, the lower ones long-stalked, and divided into five to nine pinnules; upper pinnæ and the pinnules nearly sessile; oval to linear-oblong, at the base truncate or sub-cordate or sometimes hastate, obtuse or obtusely mucronulate, terminal ones longest; veins obscure, mostly twice forked; involucre rather broad, formed of the continuously recurved margin, paler and membranaceous on the edge, not fully covering the ripened sporangia.

_Pellæa atropurpurea_, Link, Fil. Hort. Berol., p. 59.—Fée, Gen. Fil., p.
129.—Hooker, Sp. Fil., ii., p. 138.—Eaton, in Chapman’s Flora, p.
589; Gray’s Manual, ed. v., p. 660; Ferns of the South-West, p.
319.—Lawson, in Canad. Naturalist, i., p. 272.—Hooker & Baker, Syn.
Fil., p. 147.—Fournier, Pl. Mex., Crypt., p. 119.—Williamson, Ferns
of Kentucky, p. 52, t. 12.