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FERNS OF NORTH AMERICA.
curved edges. The plant is devoid of chaff; but the base of
the stalks is dilated on both sides, so as to form a pair of
broad stipular wings. These wings are peculiar to the Osmun-
dacece among ferns, and are curiously analogous to the stipules
of some Phænogamous plants. In the terminal bud of the
root-stock they are found of all degrees of development, each
one inwrapping those less developed than itself, like the scales
of an onion. The central part is thickest, and made stiff by
dark hard tissue ; but the sides grow thinner, and at the edges
are a most delicate membrane. All but the fibro-vascular midrib,
and a few veins which diverge from it obliquely, are white,
fleshy, and gorged with starch-grains oval or roundish in shape,
and of very different sizes, the exceedingly minute and the
larger ones commingled. Between the stipular bud-coatings
are layers of fine wool, densely packed away, and apparently
mixed with starchy tissue ; but of this I am not quite sure.
The apex of the scale bears a rudimentary frond, coiled up
circinately, as in most ferns. When the frond is full-grown,
the edges of the wings become scarious, and the oblique striations
of firm tissue more evident. After a while the edges of
the wings become ragged, and are torn away; but the middle
part continues white and fleshy for a long time. The root-stock
sends out strong blackish rootlets, some of which creep upward
between the scales, and others pierce directly through them, thus
binding the whole together, giving it great strength and solidity,
and taking so firm a hold upon the soil, that a strong man finds
it no easy task to tear the plant from the ground. The wings
F
FERNS OF NORTH AMERICA. 213
are, of course, decidedly concave ; but their general shape is that
of a barbed arrow-head. They are from two to two and a half
inches long, and three-fourths of an inch broad at the widest
part.
The fronds of the royal fern are said to attain the height
of ten or eleven feet in the British Islands ; but the highest
that I have ever seen were from the valley of the Connecticut
River, and measured six feet from the ground. Fronds four
or five feet high are not at all rare ; but more commonly the
fronds, including the stalk, which is nearly as long as the frond
itself, stand from two to four feet high. In dryish marshes
they are often not more than a foot or fifteen inches high, and
stand perfectly erect; but in plants of full size the fronds curve
outward in all directions, and form an object of such stately
beauty, that the plant well deserves its name of royal fern.
The color of this fern is usually a full herbaceous green,
but it is often somewhat glaucous, especially on the stalk and
rachis ; and, when grown in sunny marshes, the young fronds
are often tinged with various shades of reddish-orange and
brownish-red. The sterile fronds are broadly ovate-oblong in
outline, and exactly bi-pinnate. The primary pinnæ usually
number from seven to nine pairs, of which two or three of
the uppermost are reduced to simple leaflets ; and the rest bear
from six to twelve pinnules on each side, beside the terminal
ones. The lower pinnæ of a large frond are often a foot long,
and the lowest pair separated from the next by an interval of
four or five inches. The second pair of pinnæ are nearly or
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