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"masses around lava-rocfcs in high plateaus along the Pitt River." I
have seen it on the top of red qtiartzite rocks at Paradise Camp, in
Big Cottonwood Canon, Wahsatch Mountains, Utah.
D e s c r ip t io n :—The root-stocks form an entangled mass
so closely packed that it is difficult to separate a single root-
stock for examination. They are, however, rather slender,
covered with adherent stalk-bases, and chaffy near the growing
end. The chaff, which is also found on the lower part
of the young stalks, consists of ovate-acuminate obscurely
denticulate light-brown scales. The scales are composed of
rhomboid-linear cells, usually all of them empty, but in a
few of the scales some of the cells in the median line contain
a dark reddish-brown coloring matter, and occasionally
the number of the colored cells is so great as to form a
very evident midnerve.
The stalks are rather slender, greenish or stramineous
near the frond, but bright-brown near the base. The section
is nearly round, but slightly flattened anteriorly. At the
very base the outer sclerenchymatous sheath is well developed,
and the fibro-vascular bundles are two in number,
widely separated and enclosed in rings of scierenchyma buried
in starchy tissue. Higher up, the exterior sheath becomes
very thin, and the two bundles approach each other and
unite, forming a flgtire which reminds one of the expanded
wings of a sea-bird.
The fronds are about the size and shape of those of
W Ilvensis, being from three to six inches long, rarely over
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an inch wide, and lanceolate-oblong or linear-lanceolate in
outline. They are broadest in the middle, from which they
are narrowed to a somewhat acute apex, and grow slightly
narrower to the base. The lower pairs of pinnae are increasingly
distant. The pinnæ are triangular-oblong, the lower
ones broader than the middle ones. The uppermost gradually
diminish, so that the last below the apex is only about
a line long. The principal pinnæ are pinnatifid, or even pinnate,
into a few oblong obtuse more or less crenately toothed
lobes. The whole frond and rachis are perfectly smooth and
glabrous, though in some immature specimens a very minute
glandulosity may be detected by very close examination.
The ends of the lobes are often slightly refiexed, partly
covering the sori, thus in some degree imitating the appearance
of a Cheilanthes, for a species of which genus the plant
has sometimes been mistaken. The veins are pinnated from
a midvein, and either simple or forked, bearing the sori near
their extremities. The sori are minute at first; but the sporangia,
as they mature, often nearly cover the lower surface
of the frond. The indusium is best examined in specimens
taken when the sporangia arc about half developed. It is
saucer-like, and placed beneath the sorus, as in the rest of
the genus. It is very minute, and extremely delicate, and
consists of an inconspicuous central portion from which radiate
a few articulated cilia composed of a single series of nearly
globular cells.
The sporangia are sub-globose, and have a ring of about
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