136 FERNS OF NORTH AMERICA.
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Parry’s Exped. to Japan, ii., p. 329. — M axim ow ic z , Primitive FI.
Amurensis, p. 34 1. — M e t t e n iu s , Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 47 ; Prolu-
sio FI. Japon, in Ann. Mus. Bot. Lugd.-Batav., iii., p. 1 7 1 .—
H o o k e r & B a k e r , Syn. Fil., p. 125. — M il d e , Fil. Eur. et Atl.,
p. 31- — K e y s e r l in g , Gen. Adiantum, in Mem. Acad. Petrop., ser.
vii., xxii.. No. 2, pp. 5, 28.
Adianium Americanum, C o rnu tu s , Canad. PI. Hist., p. 7, t. 6 (16 3 5 ).
Maiden H a ir, or Cappellus veneris verus, J o s se l yn , New Englands Rarities
Discovered, p. 55 (1Ó72).
Adianium fronde supra-decomposita bipartita, fo liis partialibus alternis,
foliolis trapeziformibus obhcsis, G ronoviu s, Flora Virginica (17 39 ),
p. 123. (For other ancient references see L in næ u s , as quoted
above.)
Adiantum boreale, P r e s l , Tent. Pterid., p. 158.
H a i3, — In rich, moist woods, especially among rocks. Common from
New Brunswick and Canada southward to Central Alabama, Professor
PIu g en e a . S m ith , and westward to Lake Superior, Wisconsin, and Arkansas.
Also in Utah, California, Oregon, British Columbia, the islands of
Alaska, Kamtschatka, Japan, Mantchooria, and the Himalayan provinces of
India. Ruprecht speaks of specimens from Newfoundland, and Professor
Gray informs me that it exists in De La Pylaie’s collection from that island.
D e s c r i p t io n . — The root-stock is elongated and creeping. It
is about the diameter of a goose-quill, is covered with minute ovate
scales, roots copiously from beneath and along the sides, and,
produces fronds from the right and left sides alternately. The
stalks are usually from a foot to fifteen inches high, and from
half a line to a line in thickness. When very young, they bear
a few scattered narrow scales ; but these soon fall off, leaving
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FERNS OF NORTH AMERICA. U 7
minute pointed scars. The mature stalk is roundish in section,
the convexity being greatest on the side which corresponds to the
under surface of the frond. The two convexities, anterior and
posterior, are separated by two obscure angles or ridges, which
extend the whole length of the stalk. - The anterior, or flatter,
convex surface is nearly black, while the other side is a dark purplish
brown. The fibro-vascular bundle is U-shaped near the
base of the stalk ; but higher up it is more like a broad, open V ;
and just below the forking of the stalk it separates into two portions.
The two branches of the stalk diverge at an angle of
about fifty degrees, and rise obliquely, gracefully recurving till
they nearly meet again. From the outer side of the curve each
branch sends out from two to seven slender diverging branchlets,
which are the rachises of the pinnæ. The branchlets nearest the
forking of the stalk are from four to fifteen inches long, those
more remote successively shorter. Thus the whole frond is from
five or six to fifteen or eighteen inches broad, and, while somewhat
funnel-form in the centre, radiates nearly horizontally towards
the circumference. A pressed specimen can give but little idea
of its graceful position.
The pinnules, or leaflets, are from six to twelve lines long, and
three or four broad, and are placed alternately on the rachises of
the pinnæ. They are very numerous, seldom fewer than twelve
on each side of one of the middle (or lower) rachises, and in large
fronds sometimes as many as forty on each side. The outer
rachises bear fewer and fewer pinnules, and the outermost of even
a very large frond will not have more than eight or ten on each
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