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Fil., p. 279.— L awson, in Canad. Naturalist, i., p. 2 8 7 .—
H o o k e r & B a k e r , Syn. F il, p. 10 3 .— W il l iam so n , Ferns of
Kentucky, p. 105, t. xxix.
Polypodium bulbiforum, L in n æ u s , S p . PI., p. 1 5 5 3 .
Aspidium bulbiferum, S w a r t z , “ in Schraders Journ., 1800, ii., p. 4 1 ; ’’
Syn. F il, p. 59. — S c h k u h r , Kr>'pt. Gew., p. 55, t. 5 7 .—
W il ld en o w , Sp. PL, v., p. 275. — P u r sh , FL Am. Sept., ii.,
p. 663. — B ig e low , FL Boston, ed. iii., p. 420.
Nephrodium bulbiferum, M ic h a u x , FL Bor.-Am., ii., p. 268.
Aspidium atomarium, M u h l e n b e r g , MS. {fide Gray).—W il ld en ow , Sp.
PL, V ., p. 279 .— P u r s i -i , FL Am., Sept., ¡L, p. 665.
F i l ix baccifera, C o rnu tus , Canad. Plant. Hist., p . 5 , t. 4 .
H a b . — Dripping rocky banks and moist places among rocks, sometimes
where there are no rocks ; from Canada and New England to
Tennessee, and westward to Wisconsin and Arkansas. It is not universally
distributed over the country, but is abundant in favorable localities,
and seems to prefer a calcareous soil.
D e s c r i p t i o n ; — The root-stock of this fern is usually
quite short, seldom over an inch long, and is covered with
the persistent and somewhat fleshy bases of old stalks. The
chaff consists of a very few little ovate dark-brown scales at
the very base of the stalks, or at the apex of the root-stock.
The stalks are very slender and often nearly a foot long,
smooth and rather brittle, usually green in color, except at
the very base, where they are dark-brown ; but sometimes
the whole stalk and the rachis will be brownish nearly to the
apex of the frond. The stalk is rounded at the back, but
has a deep though narrotv furrow in front. It contains two
oval fibro-vascular bundles, which coalesce just below the base
of the frond into one which has a crescent-shaped section.
The fronds of mature plants are seldom less than a foot
long and sometimes very much longer. Professor F. L. Harvey
tells of fronds measuring, with the stalk, fully four feet
m length. The fronds are broadest at the base, where the
width is from three to five or perhaps six inches. From the
base they are gradually narrowed to the apex, giving a narrower
and more tapering outline than any other of our ferns
which have compound and feathery fronds. The fronds
arc herbaceous, and rather thin in texture, and yet not without
a kind of brittle rigidity. They are produced in early
summer, and wither at the coming of frost. The rachises and
midribs are very minutely glandular in the living plant.
The lowest pinnæ stand forward while the frond is growing,
and are often slightly defiexed in dried specimens. A
large frond has as many as forty pinnæ on each side, those
near the apex of course very small. In the lower irinnæ
the secondary rachises are not tvinged, but in the rest there
is a narrow wing formed by the decurrent bases of the pinnules.
The pinnules are oblong, obtuse, and more or less
incised or tootlied according to their size and position. The
veins are translucent in the living plant. The sori arc scattered
all over the frond, often even to the very base. They
arc placed on the lowest superior veinlet of each group, near
its middle, and so very near the midvein. The indusium is
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