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FERNS OF NORTH AMERICA.
bellulahmt to Japan: the former has hispid surfaces and small
roundish involucres ; and the latter has rusty-fibriliose rachises,
coriaceous pinnules, and transversely oblong sub-confluent involucres.
A d . patens follows the form and branching of our fern
very closely; but the two Old-World species often depart from it,
and show a tendency to develop branches on one or other of the
longest pinnæ, thus indicating an approach towards a pyramidal
structure of the frond.
The Adian ta of the United States are A d . Capillus
Veneris (Linnæus), found from North Carolina to California;
A d . emarginatum (Hooker), which is the A d . Chítense of
American botanists, but not of Kaulfuss, found in California and
Oregon; and A d . tricholepis (Fée), which occurs in Texas and
California, and extends southwards to Central America.
The American Maiden-hair is easily cultivated, and will grow
very freely either in a shaded corner of a garden or in the house,
and is perhaps more elegant and graceful than any other of our
ferns, the climbing-fern scarcely excepted. Josselyn evidently
mistook it for the Venus-hair, one of the chief ingredients in a
syrup which was formerly a famous remedy for nearly all ailments,
and said, “ The Apothecaries for shame now will substitute
PVall-Rue no more for Maiden Hair, since it grows in abundance
in New-England, from whence they may have good store.”
Mr. Emerton’s figure is taken from a living plant, and shows the frond
5 it appears before it has been flattened in a collector’s portfolio.
f t â i f t
FERNS OF NORTH AMERICA.
P l a t e XIX .
B L E C H N U M S E R R U L A T U M , R i c h a r d .
Florida Blechnum.
B i . e c h n u m s e r r u l a t u m : — Root-stock creeping, or sub-
erect, woody, covered like the bases of the stalks with fine narrow
fuscous-brown chaff; stalks scattered or somewhat clustered, rigid
and nearly smooth, six to eighteen inches long; fronds oblong-
linear, one to three feet long, pinnate ; pinnæ very numerous, sessile,
joined to the rachis by a distinct articulation, coriaceous,
smooth and glossy above, minutely chaffy beneath along the midrib,
finely serrulate along the margin, the terminal one distinct ;
sterile ones elliptical or linear-oblong, rounded at the base, and
barely pointed at the apex ; veins oblique to the midrib, crowded,
forked at the base, free ; fertile pinnæ narrower and more acute,
bearing the sporangia on a special receptacle closely parallel to
the midrib ; involucres attached to the receptacle outside the
sporangia, free along the inner edge, at length reflexed.
Blechnum serrulatum, R ic t ia rd , in “ Act. Soc. Hist. Nat. Par. i., p. 1 14 .” —
M ich a u x , FI. Bor. Am., ii., p. 264. — S w.vr tz , Syn. Fil., p. 1 1 3 .—
S ch k u h r , Krypt. Gew., p. 100, t. 108. — \ \ 'î i .i .dcnow, Sp. FI..
p. 4 1 1 . — P u r sh , FI. Am. Sept., il., p. 669. — M e t t e n iu s , I'll.
Hort. Lips., p. 63. — H o o k e r , Sp. Fil., iii. p. 54 , — E aton, in
Chapman's Flora of Southern U. S., p. 591. — G r is ed a c ii, I'l.
Brit. W. I. Is., p. 673. — H o o k e r & B a k e r , Syn. b'il., p. 18 6 .—
B en th am , FI. Austral., v i i., p. 739.
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