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70 F E R N S OF NORTH AM E R IC A .
A sp id ium m a rg ina le, Swautz, Syn. Fil., p. 50. — S c h k u h r , Krypt.
Gew., p. 195, t. 45, b. — W i l ld e n o w , Sp. PL, v., p. 259.—
P u r s h , FL Am. Sept., ii., p. 662. — L in k , Fil. Hort. Berol.,
p. 107. — H o o k e r , FL Bor.-Am., ii., p. 16 0 .— T o r r e y , FL
New York, ii., p. 495, — G r a y , Manual, ed. ii., p. 598. — M e t t
e n iu s , Pil. Hort. Lips., p. 92: Aspidium, p. 55. — E a t o n , in
Chapman’s Flora, p. 595. — R o b in s o n , Ferns of Essex Co., in
Bull. Essex Inst., vii., No. 3, p. 50. — W i l l iam s o n , Ferns of
Kentucky, p. 97, t. xx xv.— D a v e n p o r t , Catal., p. 32.
Polypodium marg ina le, L in n æ u s , Sp. PL, p. 1552.
Nephrodium margina le, M ic h a u x , FL Bor.-Am., ü ., p. 267. — H o o k e r .
Sp. FiL, iv., p. 122. — H o o k e r & B.a k e r , Syn. Fil., p. 275.
L as trea m a rg in a lis , P r e s l , Tent. Pterid., p. 77. — J. S m ith , F'erns,
Brit. and Foreign, p. 157. — L awson, in Canad. Naturalist,
i., p. 281.
Dryopteris saarginalis, G r .a y, Manual, ed. i., p, 632. — D a r l in g to n ,
FI. Cestrica, ed. iii., p. 396.
H a e .— Rocky hill-sides in rieh woods, especially where black Icaf-
mold has gathered between masses of rock; one of our most abundant
and characteristic ferns, confined to North America, but extending from
New Brunswick to Central Alabama, Professor E u g e n e A. S m ith ;
westward to Arkansas, Professor F. L. H a r v e v ; Wisconsin, P a r r y ,
T. j . H a l e ; and brought from the Saskatchewan and the Rocky Mountains
of British America by D rummo n d .
D e s c r i p t i o n : — Professor Robinson has remarked of this
species: — “ This comes nearer being a tree fern than any
other of our species ; the cauclex, covered by the bases of
fronds of previous seasons, sometimes resting on bare rocks
F E R N S OF NORTH AM E R IC A . 71
for four or five inches without roots or fronds.” The root-
stock is much like that of A . Filix-mas, being very stout-
closcly covered with persistent stalk-bases and very chaffy.
The chaff really grows mainly on the bases of the stalks, or
covers the closely coiled buds which crown the root-stock. It is
composed of shining ferruginous-brown thin lanceolate acuminate
scales fully an inch in length, and destitute of a thickened
midnerve. The fronds grow in elegant crowns from the
apex of the root-stock, some six or eight or perhaps ten to
a plant. The stalks vary in length, but are seldom more than
a foot long. They are rather stout, round, but with a slight
furrow in front, commonly reddish-brown in color, fading when
dry to straw-color, and contain five or seven roundish fibro-
vascular bundles, of which the two anterior ones are largest,
and the next two the smallest.
The outline of the fronds is ovate-lanceolate, varying to
oblong-lanceolate. The frond is commonly not quite so wide
at the base as in the middle, though in small specimens the
base is often the widest. The texture is thicker than in any
other of our Woocl-ferns, and the fronds are fairly evergreen,
not withering until the next year’s fronds begin to uncoil.
In cutting, the fronds vary from pinnate, with pinnatifid pinnæ
and short nearly entire lobes, to twice pinnate, with pinnately-
lobed segments. In the example selected for our plate the
pinnules are oblong, obtuse and crenulate, or at most, crenately
toothed. Other, and perhaps no larger, fronds will have
most of the pinnules twice or even thrice as long as these.
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