46 Rhodora [FEBRUARY 
rufescent color (essentially the cinnamon of Ridgway’s Color Stand- 
ards, but more dilute), sometimes a little deeper-colored near the 
center (about the warm sepia of Ridgway), and they rarely persist on 
the rhachis and very rarely on the rhachillas of the mature frond. 
In the European plant, on the other hand, the specimens fully agree 
with the European descriptions (too often drawn upon for American 
texts) in having the lance-attenuate scales very dark brown, usually 
blackish (closely matching in color the aniline black of Ridgway), 
and of comparatively firm texture, ordinarily quite like the dark basal 
scales of the stipe of D. Goldiana. These rather firm blackish scales 
usually persist to the summit of the mature stipe and (reduced in size) 
often extend well along the rhachis, and even along the rhachillas of the 
lower pinnae in some specimens. These characters, drawn from the 
European specimens in the Gray Herbarium and from an extensive 
suite of European material placed at the writer's disposal by Mr. 
Robert A. Ware, are, as said, in agreement with the European 
descriptions. For example, in his very detailed account of the plant 
in the British Isles, Moore said: “ Stipes.... densely scaly; the scales 
spreading, most numerous at the base, but usually abundant through- 
out the whole length of the stipes, and in the normal plant lanceolate- 
attenuate, and dark-centered like those of the crown, frequently 
almost black. Rachis .... somewhat scaly, especially at the back, 
with small subulate more or less distinctly two colored scales." ! 
Again, writing from the continental standpoint, Christ says: “Scales 
of the stipe smaller, black-brown, with paler margins." ? 
The glandular-ciliate margin of the indusium in the European plant 
is difficult to see except in perfect specimens; but the characteristic 
scales, not only in texture and color but in their comparative abun- 
dance, quickly separate the common European plant from the common 
plant so long mistaken for it in eastern America. In the Northwest, 
however, where so many identities with the European flora are known, 
the typical var. dilatata is found, much of the material from western 
Alaska, British Columbia and Washington and some from Oregon 
being quite inseparable, in the slender dark brown and rather persistent 
scales extending even along the middle pinnae, from the common 
European plant. 
1 Moore, Oct. Nat. Pr. Brit. Ferns, i. 226, 227 (1859). 
2“*Schuppen des Blattstiels schmaler, schwarzbraun mit blasserem Rande" — 
Christ, Farnkr. der Erde, 261 (1877). 
