T
Y ' "
' . t
l i t !
Hr. ft
1»
1- 'f
f
> ' ■
' 4
'' '
' . . 1 . A t . • i
■
C . J
'
X ; •1
f i
• t
\
i. A 'i
I
l
8 6 F E R N S OF NORTH AM ER IC A .
D e s c r i p t i o n :—The creeping root-stock is scarcely a line
in diameter, and is covered, as are the bases of the stalks,
with very small lanceolate slender-pointed ferruginous scales.
The stalks are more or less scattered, and are wiry, furrowed
along the anterior side, chcstnut-brown in color, smooth
and shining. The color is continued as far up the rachis as
there are distinct pinnæ, and also for a short distance up the
midribs of the pinnæ. In a section of the stalk may be
seen a rather thick outer sclerenchymatous sheath, and a
central heart-shaped fibro-vascular bundle, the lobes of the
heart being directed toward the sides of the conspicuous
furrow.
The fronds are about as long as the stalks, herbaceous,
green, smooth on both surfaces, ovate-oblong, and composed
of from four to six pairs of pinnæ, the lower ones rather
distant, and the upper ones gradually passing into the pinnatifid
apex of the frond.
The pinnæ are nine or ten lines long, and the lower
ones nearly as broad. The lower pairs are deltoid or
triangular-ovate in shape, but the upper ones are ovate or
oblong-ovate. They are short-stalked, and are obliquely divided
into a few adnate-decurrent oblong segments, the three
or four lowest ones of which are again pinnately lobed or
incised, and the upper ones nearly entire and confluent into
a broadly-triangiilar incised terminal portion. The ultimate
lobes are only one or two lines long, triangular-ovate and
mostly obtuse. The ends of the smaller lobes and the sides
J ■
F E R N S OF n o r t h AM E R IC A . 6 j
of the larger ones are revolute, forming usually separated but
sometimes continuous involucres, which have the same green
color and herbaceous texture as the frond itself.
The spores are sub-globose, and very obscurely or not
at all trivittate.
This is one of the rarest of our species of Cheilanthes,
having been collected by only three or four persons, and at
distant intervals. Among our many species of the genus it
is characterized by the smooth and glabrous surfaces of the
deltoid bipinnatifid pinnæ, and the herbaceous involucres.
Apparently it has not been brought into cultivation,
either in Europe or America. Hooker wrote of it: — “ A
small and very pretty, and, as far as I can judge, very
distinct species, somewhat allied in its fructifications to the
East Indian Cheilanthes variaits of Dr. Wallich, but very
much smaller and with ample distinguishing characters from
that.” Dr. Mettcnius had seen no specimens of it when
writing his monograph of the genus, and so merely mentioned
it next after C. multifida of South Africa. In Synopsis
Filicum it is placed betAveen C. multifida and C. tenuifolia,
with the remark that “ in habit it comes very near the small
forms of C. tenuifolia, but the involucres are less confluent.”
Of these three species C. multifida is certainly the nearest to
it, having a similar texture and similar segments, but a ten
times larger frond and distinct squamiform involucres. Chei-
lanthes viscida of Davenport, figured at Plate X I I of this
work, is probably its nearest ally, but differs slightly in the
I s
I {
1