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pinnatifid, the lowest lobes well developed, and even slightly
incised, in var. sub-compositinn ; and in the next stage, var. com-
positum, it is decidedly ternate, and consists of three stalked
ovate-oblong divisions, which are pinnately lobed or incised. Var.
angushun is simply a slender form, drawn out, perhaps, by growing
in an unusually moist and shady place. The sterile segment
is rounded at the apex, as are all the divisions and lobes.
The veins are dichotomous, or forking. The midrib of the
sterile segment usually contains two slender vascular threads,
and from these the veins for the lateral lobes branch off some
little distance below the insertion of these lobes. The vein for
each lobe forks just at the beginning of the narrowed base of
the lobe, and continues to branch dichotomously ; so that the lobe
is well supplied with veinlets, but has no one special midvcin.
The fertile segment considerably overtops the sterile, and
varies, according to the size of the plant, from a simple spike to a
fairly bipinnate panicle. The sporangia are commonly somewhat
crowded, though more so in the shorter and more compound
forms of the plant than in the slender and drawn-out specimens.
All the Botrychia occasionally produce a few sporangia, or even
a complete panicle, from some usually sterile portion of the
plant; and B . sintplex is no exception to this rule. The panicle
may fork in the middle, or be divided down to its insertion on
the common stem; or a second panicle may be borne on the
sterile segment; or even some particular lobe of the sterile segment
may bear a few sporangia. The spores are the largest of
the genus, and are thickly dotted with minute points.
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Mr. Davenport has sufficiently established the probability
that some of the specimens on which President I-Iitchcock
founded this species were really young plants of B . matricaricefolium
: but the original figure and description point plainly to the
B . simplex of recent authors ; and two of the Conway plants,
which were sent me from President Hitchcock’s collection some
years ago, are unmistakable One of them, with a perfectly
simple sterile segment placed just below the middle of
the plant, is represented at Fig. 2 of our Plate X V I I . : the
other, about the same size, has a three-lobed sterile. segment
near the base of the plant.
This fern was very scantily represented in American herbaria
until about thirteen years ago, when Professor J . A. Paine began
to collect it in Oneida County, New York, and Professor Sidney
I. Smith brought fine specimens from Maine. At a time when
B . lanceolatum and B . matricaricefolium were not recognized as
American plants, every little Botrychium was thought to be the
siznplex; and hence the descriptions given of it in the various
manuals of botany were made wide enough to include the other
species also. But the character given by Dr. Torrey, in “ The
Flora of New York,” is very clear: “ Frond from the lower part
of the scape, oblong, irregularly three- to four- lobed or pinnatifid,
with the segments roundish, obovate, cuneate, and entire or
somewhat incised ; spike pinnate.”
In Dr. Milde’s various papers, and especially in Mr. Davenport’s
monograph on Botrychmm simplex, may be found very full
accounts of the history of this little fern, together with a careful
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