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New York, E dw in H u n t , Mrs. Dr. B a r n e s , M r s . R u st , etc. Dutchess
County, New York, L . H . H oy sr ad t . Southern New York and New Jersey,
C. F. A u st in . Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, A. P. G a r b e r . Cleveland,
Ohio, /He M i l d e . Lake Superior, H . G il em a n . Also in Unalaska,
Northern Europe and Siberia.
D e s c r i p t i o n . — This fern is usually about five to seven
inches high ; small specimens being sometimes only two or three
inches high, and very large ones attaining the height of eight or
nine inches. The common stalk is more than four-fifths of the
whole height of the plant, so that the sterile and the fruiting segments
are borne close together on the top of a slender common
stalk. This stem or stalk is moderately fleshy, from half a line
to a line and a half thick, and considerably swollen at the base,
where it encloses the bud for the fronds for the next year or two.
The sterile segment in full-sized plants is closely sessile and
broadly triangular in form, measuring.an inch in width, and
scarcely more than an inch in length. There are about four pairs
of pinnæ or sidc-divisions, all set on obliquely; the lowest ones
decidedly largest, ovate-lanceolate in shape, sub-acute at the apex,
the sides cut about half-way to the mid-vein into little obliquely-
placed ovate-oblong lobes, and the base gradually narrowed, but
attached to the central rachis by a manifest wing. The second
and third pairs of lateral divisions are successively smaller, and
are also lobed or toothed, but less so than the lowest pair. There
is sometimes a fourth pair of short, slightly-toothed divisions, and
then the rhomboid-ovate apex, which is moderately acute, and
either slightly toothed or entire. In very small specimens there
are only two or three pairs of sidc-divisions, and these arc oblong-
lanceolate and nearly entire, the lowest pair longest, as in more
fully developed plants.
There is a single central vein in the main rachis, and this
sends off a branch to each lateral division, and from these
branches in turn a veinlet extends to each lobe. If the lobes are
toothed, there is a smaller veinlet extending to each tooth. Every
vein or veinlet leaves its parent-vein some distance below, the
base of the division or lobe to which it runs ; so that below each
pair of pinnæ there will be seen in the rachis a central vein and
two gradually diverging lateral veins ; but these branch-veins
unite with the central vein about opposite the upper side of the
base of the next lower pair of side-divisions.
The fruiting segment has a stalk from three to nine lines
long, and is usually a little longer than the sterile segment. It is
usually twice pinnate, the lower pinnæ or branches nearly erect or
slightly spreading, and nearly as long as the middle portion. All
the branches and branchlets are more elongated than in the other
small Botrychia, and the sporangia are rather distantly placed ;
so that the whole panicle is seldom dense, but comparatively lax
and sparingly fruited.
As in the other species of the genus, it not unfrequently
happens that some portion of the sterile segment will be much
contracted, and bear a few sporangia. The whole plant is perfectly
smooth, and much less fleshy than B . Ltmaria or B . ter-
Very young plants of this species are not easily distin