Rhodora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 17. September, 1915. No. 201. 
THE AMERICAN OSTRICH FERN. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
Tue Ostrich Fern of eastern North America is commonly treated 
as identical with the Eurasian species; and, although long kept with 
Onoclea as O. Struthiopteris (L.) Hoffm., it is now recognized by the 
leading students of ferns as constituting, with a few other species, 
a distinct genus Matteuccia Todaro (1866). For a long time those who 
maintained the Ostrich Ferns as generically distinct from Onoclea 
placed them under Struthiopteris Willd. (1809) but the earlier valid 
use of the name Struthiopteris by Weiss in 1770 for the genus which 
has been generally called Lomaria Willd. (1809) necessitates the aban- 
donment of the generic name Struthiopteris for our “Ostrich Ferns.” 
The uniting of the American Ostrich Fern with the European under 
the names Onoclea Struthiopteris (L.) Hoftm., Struthiopteris germanica 
Willd. or Matteuccia Struthiopteris (L.) Todaro has of late been so 
general and so entirely unquestioned that one wonders whether 
European students of the ferns can have much familiarity with the 
American plants or American students with the European material. 
By the older students of our flora the plants were not considered 
conspecific, while by some of a later generation they have been treated 
as varietally distinct. The first to distinguish the American plant was. 
Michaux who, in 1803, described the American Ostrich Fern from 
material collected at Montreal as Onoclea nodulosa: “O. pinnis sessi- 
libus, linearibus, pinnatifidis: fronde fertili pinnis quasi noduloso- 
articulatis; urceolis contiguis”;! but most unfortunately Michaux 
appended to this very clear description the synonyms Acrostichum 
1 Michx. Fl. Bor. Am. ii. 272 (1803). 
