' k I
f i l l Ä fi
Fil., p. 163. — ScHLECHTENDAL, in Linnæa, V., p. 6 1 1 . — H o oker
& A e n o it , Bot. Beechey’s Voyage, pp. 16 2 , 4 0 5 . — H o o k e r ,
Gen. Fil., t. xvii; Sp. F I , iii., p. 66. — L in k , Fil. Hort.
Berol., p. 8 1 .— L ie bm a n .n , Mex. Bregn., p. 8 7 . — M e t t ew u s ,
Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 66. — E aton, in Bot. Mex. Boundary, p.
2 3 3 .— W il lk o m m & L a n g e , Prod. FI. Hisp., i., p. lo i—
M i l d e , Fii. Eur. et Atlant., p. 4 7 . — F o u r n ie r , PI. Mex.,
Crypt., p. I I I .
Woodwardia radicans, var. spinulosa. F e e , Gen. Fil., p. 207.
Woodwardia radicans, v a r . Americana, H o o k e r , S p . Fil., iii., p . 6 7 . —
E-Ato n , Ferns o f the South-West, p . 3 2 8 .
Woodwardia Stans, S w a r t z , Syn. Fil., p. 1 17. — S c h k u h r , Krypt. Gew.,
p. 104, t. 1 1 3 .
Woodwardia spinulosa. M a r t e n s & G a l e o t t i , Syn. Fil., Mex., p. 64.—
F e e , 8me Mém., p. 122.
Woodwardia Chamissoi, B r a c k e n r i d g e , Fil. U. S. Expl. Exped., p. 138.
Blechmint radicans, L in n æ u s , Mantissa, p. 307.
H ab.— By living streams in shaded places, especially in the valleys
and canons of the Coast ranges, and of the Sierra a l * , in California
from Long 'Valley to San Diego. Mexico and Guatemala, a common
fern. From Madeira and the Canaries throughout Mediterranean Europe :
in Congo, Abyssinia, Northern India and Java. Peru, China and Australia
are also given by various authors.
D e s c r i p t i o n : — After Acrostichum aureum this is unquestionably
the most magnificent of North American Ferns.
The root-stock is very large, and sometimes rises a few
inches from the ground, in the manner of a tree-fern with a
very short caudex. Unlike our two other species of IVoodwardia,
which have slender and creeping root-stocks, and
scattered or even distant stalks, this one has the stalks clustered
about the end of the root-stock, and the fronds standing
in a crown or circle, the root-stock, with its chaff and
clustered stalks resembling that of Aspidium marginale, but
twice as large. The root-stock and the bases of the stalks
are heavily covered with large lanceolate bright-brown chaffy
scales, some of them fully an inch long. They are entire
on the edges, destitute of midnerve, and mainly composed
of narrowly-linear cells, those towards the base being short
and broad, much as in the leaves of many kinds of moss.
The stalk is nearly semiterete, becoming deeply furrowed on
the flattened (anterior) side when dried, a foot or more long and
nearly half an inch thick at the base in large plants, greenish-
brown, becoming deep-dull-brown in herbarium specimens ;
when mature chaffy only at the base. The section shows a
tough exterior sheath and four or more interior fibro-vascular
bundles, two strap-shaped bundles at the sides, and several
smaller ones at the back. Milde mentions only the lateral
bundles, but a specimen from Madeira shows six others.
The fronds are said by Brackenridge and Brewer to be
three .or lour feet high. Mrs. Cooper writes from Santa
Barbara as follows: — “ Our grand Woodwardia radicans grows
close beside living streams in somewhat shaded localities,
and in favored situations it attains the height of eight or
ten feet. The young fronds are of a light tender green,
while the older ones are of a rich dark color, and grow from