F E R N S O F NO R TH AM ER IC A . 43
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Hai!. — Crevices of rocks in mountainous districts, from Ulster
County, New York, where it was discovered by Rev. H. M. D en slow ,
southward along the Allcghanies, and west of them, to Kentucky, Tennessee
and Alabama.'
Description: — This plant grows in dense tufts, the
root-stocks so matted and fastened together by interlacing
rootlets that a single plant is not easily separated from the
mass. The scales of the root-stocks appear nearly black to
the eye, but when placed under the microscope are seen to
be composed in the lower portion of nearly square cells, the
cell-walls of a deep vinous red. The slender acumination of
the scales is formed of the persistent thickened walls of
adjacent cells, the thin exterior walls having probably disappeared,
much in the same way as the teeth of the peristome
are formed in most mosses.
The stalks arc dark-brown and somewhat polished in the
lower part, but become green and herbaceous below the base
of the frond. A section near the base shows two fibro-vascular
bundles, but these are united near the middle of the stalk,
and a section made just below the frond shows but one.
• I have specimens from several places in Pennsylvania, collected by Professor
P o r t e r and Mr. E . D if f e n b a o o i i ; from the vicinity o f Mammoth Cave, Kentucky,
Professor H u s s e y ; from Eastern Tennessee, Professor B r a d l e y ; from North Carolina,
Professor G r a y , and abundant specimens from Northern Alabama, sent by I-Ion. T. M.
P e t e r s . Professor E u g e n e A . S m it h sent it from the valley o f the Cohaba R iv e r, in
central Alabama. Mr. A l b e r t K . S m il e y writes that it grows abundantly at Lake Mo-
honk, and in several other places in the Shawangiink Mountains in Ulster County, New
Y o rk , where it has also been collected by Miss C. C. H a s k e l l and Professor P e c k .
The fronds are but two or three inches long, and decidedly
triangular-ovate in shape, in the specimens collected
by the earlier botanists, and in those figured by Mettenius;
but some of the plants sent by Mr. Peters have fronds four
inches long, exclusive of stalk. Mr. Williamson speaks of
still larger fronds, but it is probable that his “ six or seven "
and “ ten” inches include the stalk as well as the frond.
The fronds are apparently evergreen, and are of a thicker
texture than those of A . Brad/eyi; — Hooker calls them
subcoriaceo-membranaceous. They arc always broadest at the
base, so that the shorter ones are triangular-ovate, and the
longer ones triangiilar-lanceolate. The longest ones often
end m a long and slender pinnatifid acumination. The rachis
is flattened and narrowly winged. The fronds are pinnate,
and have several pairs of ovate or ovate-lanceolate pinnæ,
the lowest ones pinnately divided into irregular oblong or
rhomboid-ovate segments, which are dentate or more or less
cut-toothed. The pinnæ are gradually smaller and simpler
towards the apex of the frond. The sori are rather short,
and are placed near the midveins of the segments. The lower
one on the upper side of the midvein is very often diplazioid,
as is frequently the case in many other Asplenia with compound
fronds. The indusia are very thin, and have an entire
margin; as the sporangia ripen the indusia are reflexcd and
hidden by the fruit. The spores, as in the other species figured
in our fifty-first plate, are ovoid or slightly reniform, and
irregularly but very narrowly winged.
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