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FERNS OF NORTH AMERICA.
at its extremity. In somewhat larger plants the lower veinlet
of each pair is again forked ; and this is, perhaps, the commonest
arrangement. In var. occidentale the middle one of
the three veinlets is once more forked, as it is also in large
fronds from Europe. Var. serratum has as many as five veinlets
in each group ; and in var. Cambricum the primary veins
are elongated, and bear numerous simple or forked secondary
veinlets.
The rounded sori are about one line in diameter, and are
borne about midway between the midrib and the margins of
the segments. The sporangia have the proper vertical incomplete
ring of the sub-order. The number «of joints in the ring
of PolypodiacecB is variable ; the extremes, according to Fée,
being ten and thirty-two. In the present species I have
observed thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen. The spores are rather
large, yellowish, and oblong-reniform : they have a single vitta
or band along the concave side, and the surface is minutely
areolated or reticulated.
The young fronds appear in the spring, and by August
or September are in full fruit. They remain green through
the winter, the emptied sporangia still clinging to them till
after the new fronds are developed in the succeeding season.
Plate X X X I., Figs. 1 - 3 .— Polypodium vulgare. Fig. i is a plant
from Beverly, Massachusetts, of the common form in New England;
Fig. 2, a sporangium; Fig. 3, a spore. The last two are more or less
magnified.
FERNS OF NORTH AMERICA.
P l a t e X X X I. — F ig s . 4, 5.
POLYPODIUM C A L IFO RN IC UM , K a u l f u s s .
Californian P o lyp o d y .
P o l y p o d iu m C a l i f o r n i c u m : — Root-stock creeping, chaffy
with light-brown scales ; stalks greenish, straw-colored when
dry, smooth ; fronds from a few inches to a foot long, ovate
or ovate-oblong, papery-herbaceous, or, if grown near the sea,
of firmer texture, pinnatifid almost to the midrib ; segments
numerous, oblong-linear, obtuse or acute, the lower ones
mostly opposite, narrowed at the lower side of the base, and
separated by rounded sinuses, the upper ones opposite or alternate,
dilated at the base, especially on the upper side, and
with narrower sinuses ; margins obscurely or plainly serrate ;
veins producing four to six veinlets, and often forming oblique
areolations ; sori slightly elliptical, rather remote from the
margin.
Polypodium Californicum, K a u l fu s s , Enum. Fi!., p. 102. — H o o k e r &
A rno tt , Bot. Beechey’s Voy., pp. 16 1, 405. — T o r r e y , Pacif.
R. Rep., iv., p. 159. — E aton, in Bot. Mex. Boundary, p. 235.
— H o o k e r , Sp. F i l , v., p. 18 .— H o o k e r & B a k e r , Syn. F il,
p. 3 4 1 .— [Not P . Californicum of M e t t e n iu s , Pol., p. 7 1.]
Polypodium intermedium. H o o k e r & A rn o t t , Bot. Beechey’s Voy., p. 405.
— H o o k e r , Fi. Bor.-Am., ii., p. 258. — T o r r e y , Pacif. R, Rep.,
iv., p. 159. — B r a c k e n r id g e , Fil. of U .S . Expl. Exped., p. 9.
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