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Nephrodium Goldiamtm, H o o k e r & G r e v i l l e , I c . Fil. t . c i i . — H o o k e r ,
Sp. Fi!., iv., p. 12 1. — H o o k e r & B a k e r , Syn. Fil., p. 272.
Lastrea Goldiana, P r e s l , Tent. Pterid., p. 76. — L a w s o n , in Ctinad.
Nat. i., p. 282.
Dryopteris Goldiana, G r a y , Manual, ed. i., p. 6 3 1.
Aspidium Filix-mas, P u r sh , FI. Am. Sept., ii., p . 6 62 .
H a b . — 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.
D e s c r i p t io n : — 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 . cristatmn, 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,