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162 F E R N S OF NO R TH AM E R IC A .
E aton, in Chapman’s Flora, p. 594; Ferns of the South-West,
P- 332.— G e is ed a cm , FI. British W. I. Islands, p, 692.— F ou r n
ie r , PI. Mex., Crypt., p. 95,
Polypodium patens, A it o n ; S w a r t z , Fl. Ind. Occ., p. 1673.
Nephrodium patens, D e sv .aux ; H o o k e r , Sp. F il, iv,, p. 95.— H o o k e r &
B a k e r , Syn., F il, p. 2 6 2 .
Lastrea patens, P r e s l , Tent. Pterid., p. 75.
Aspidium nymfhalc, F o s t e r , “ Prodr., n. 4 4 2 .’’— S c h k u h r , Krypt. G e w „
P- 36, t. 34.
Aspidium moUe, K u n z e , in Silliman's Journal, July, 18 4 8 , p. 8 3 .
H a b.— Low shady woods, Florida to South Carolina and westward
near the Gulf of Mexico to Alabama, Louisiana and Texas. Also in
several canons near Santa Barbara, California, Mrs. C o o p er , Dr. R o th ro c k .
Mr. L emmon, etc. A specimen is in the herbarium at Kew, marked
“ San Francisco, Calif Dr, S in c l a ir , ” and the same station is reported
in the Botany of Captain Beechey’s voyage, but no one has found the
fern near that city in many years, and it may be considered probable
that there is some error in the locality as given witli specimen. It
IS a common fern throughout tropical America, and plants not distinguishable
from it are found in South Africa and the islands of the
Pacific Ocean.
- D e s c r ip t io n .— The root-stock is a few inches long and
creeping. It is slenderer than that of Aspidium cristatum,
but not cord-like as in A . Thelypteris. It bears the up-curved
bases of numerous stalks, and is moderately chaffy with small
lanceolate fuscous-brown ciliated scales; a few similar scales
are found near the base of the stalk.
The stalk varies from a few inches to over a foot in
I'
F E R N S OF NORTH AM ER IC A . 183
length in the North American specimens, and is over Uvo
feet long in some from tropical America. It is stramineous,
but darker at the base, roundish-quadrangular, with a furrow
on the anterior side, and, when dried, with lateral furrows also.
The surface is softly pubescent. There are two strap-shaped
fibro-vascular bundles near the base of the stalk, but near
the frond the two are, united into a single U-shaped bundle.
The structure of the bundle is not unlike that of A .
Thelypteris, but here the interior projections, as I have observed
them, are four in number, the two lateral ones being
visible in the separate bundles of the lower part of the stalk.
The fronds vary very much in size, but the largest I
have seen from North America are not over two feet long
and one foot wide. In the tropics the size is often considerably
greater. The texture is thin, but not without a certain
degree of firmness. Both surfaces are pubescent with fine
white sharp-pointed unicellular hairs. Large fronds have as
many as twenty-two to twenty-seven pinnæ on each side,
besides the long pinnatifid and acuminate apex. The lower
pinnæ are slightly defiexed, but are scarcely shorter than
the others. The middle pinnæ are spreading, or curved upwards,
and the upper ones are oblique to the rachis. The
pinnæ are from three to six inches long, or longer in some
exotic specimens, narrowly linear and slenderly acuminate,
being rarely more than half an inch wide at the base, and
keeping nearly this width for more than half their length.
The lowest ones are sometimes a little narrowed at the base.
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