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F E R N S OF NORTH AM E R IC A .
Pteris Alabamensis, B u c k le y , in Silliman’s Journal, 18 4 3 , p. 1 7 7 .
Pellæa Alabamcfisis, B a k e r , Syn. Fil., p. i
Pteris gracilis, R u g e l , “ Plant. Am. Sept. Exsicc.,” not of Kaulfuss.
H a b . — On rocks, certainly on sandstone and perhaps on lime-
rock, along the banks of the rivers of Eastern Tennessee and the
western parts of Virginia and North Carolina, R u g e l , B u c k le y , B r a d le
y , VV. F a x o n , Jam e s C o n s t a b le , Jr., etc. Franklin County, Kentucky,
Professor W i ld b e r g e r . Valley of the Cohaba River, Alabama, Prof.
E u g e n e A . Sm ith . Mouth of Rio Pecos, Texas, Dr. J. M. B i g e l o w ,
and along the lower Rio Grande, A r t h u r S c h o t t .
D e s c r i p t i o n : — The Alabama Lip-Fern is beautifully
figured and admirably described in Hooker’s Filices Exoticce.
But little of the root-stock is preserved on the specimens
I have received. Hooker says : — “ Caudex creeping and
branched, with the stipites rising in tufts from their short,
almost shaggy, sericeo-villous branches: their hairs or hairlike
scales are of a rich ferruginous color.” The scales of
the root-stock are a little broader than those of the base of
the stalk, but are softer and more silky than in C. micro-
phylla, to which the present species is so closely related that
Hooker had to the last considerable doubt of its specific
distinction.
The stalks are usually about four or five inches long,
erect, terete, wiry, black and polished. Along the anterior
side there is a faint line of short paleaceous pubescence,
.which is continued along the rachis of the frond. The section
of the stalk is round and contains a single rounded-
F E R N S OF NORTH AM E R IC A .
heart-shaped fibro-vascular bundle. The exterior sheath of
scierenchyma is moderately thick and very opaque.
The fronds are rarely over eight inches long and an inch
and a half broad. They are lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate
in shape, rather long-pointed, and usually a little narrower
at the base than in the middle. The primary rachis and the
lower half or two-thirds of the midribs of the pinnæ are
ebeneous like the stalk. There are from twelve to twenty
pinnæ each side of the rachis, besides the minuter pinnæ
which pass into the segments of the pinnatifid apex. The
principal pinnæ are about an inch long and nearly half as wide,
short stalked, and ovate-lanceolate from a broad base. They
are divided quite to the midrib into rather numerous triangular
oblong adnate-decurrent pointed pinnules, three or four
lines long, the smaller ones of which are either entire or
auricled on the upper side of the base, but the larger ones
are pinnately incised into three *or four short lateral lobes
and a much larger terminal one. The texture is firmly
chartaceous, though both Kunze and Hooker call it subcoriaceous,
a term implying a somewhat heavier frond than the
plant really possesses. Both surfaces are smooth and of a
clear herbaceous green color.
The edges of the lobes are rather, broadly refiexed, and
are more delicate and paler than the rest of the frond, forming
a well-defined involucre, which would be continuous were
it not interrupted by the lateral incisions of the pinnules.
The spores are rounded, and apparently destitute of vittæ.
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