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26 FERNS OF NORTH AMERICA.
lateral segments on each side, the upper ones closely placed, and
connected by a broad wing along the midrib, and the lower ones
gradually more distinct, the lowest quite so, and often a little auricled
above and below. The apex is often proliferous, and so are
a few of the longest segments. The texture is firmly membranaceous,
and the surfaces perfectly smooth. The sori are in a
single row on each side of the midrib of the terminal prolongation,
and similarly on the segments, rather short, and mostly of
the proper Euasplenium type, — that is, single, and with the indu-
sium opening upwards and inwards ; but near the base of nearly
every segment are a few diplazioid or scolopendrioid sori, with
double indusia placed back to back on the same veinlet in one
case, and face to face on contiguous veinlets in the other. The
veins are everywhere free.
This curious plant has now been found in three or four different
and widely-distant localities, but always in the immediate
company of the walking-leaf (Camptosorus) and the ebony spleenwort
(A. ebeneum). While it differs from the first by its dark and
shining stalk and rachis; in its free veins, and by its pinnatifid or
sub-pinnate frond, it resembles it strongly in the prolonged and
slender apex, in the irregular sori, and especially in its proliferous
habit ; and, in the very respects in which it differs from this, it
resembles the other. For these reasons, Rev. M. J. Berkeley, in
the article cited on the preceding page, is strongly inclined to
suspect that it is a true natural hybrid of the two. That this
view is correct certainly appears probable; but it can only be
established by a successful attempt to produce the present plant
f t 4
FERNS OF NORTH AMERICA. 2 J
by artificial hybridizing; and I would strongly recommend this
attempt to those persons who have facilities for experiments of
the kind.
Mr. Merrill of Cambridgeport has had A . ebenoides in cultivation
for some time, and finds it easy to multiply plants by caring
properly for the proliferous buds.
There is an Asplenimn Hendevsoni, figured by Lowe at Plate
12 of the fifth volume of his work on Ferns, which bears considerable
resemblance to our plant, but lacks the long and slender
apex, and apparently is not proliferous. It originated spontaneously
in the ferneries of Farl Fitzwilliam at Wentworth ITouse,
England. Asplenium pmnatifidum (Nuttall) also bears considerable
resemblance to A . ebenoides, but has a green herbaceous
midrib or rachis, a sinuous-margined prolongation, thicker texture,
and is very rarely, if indeed ever, proliferous.
Plate IV., Fig. 2 .— A frond o i Asplenium ebenoides, the segments less
elongated than usual.