The Plant World 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF POPULAR BOTANY 



Official Organ of 

 The Wild Flower Preservation Society 



OF America 



Vol. VI JANUARY, 1903 No. i 



^'Obtusilobata'' Forms of Some Ferns. 



By C. E. Waters. 



Any one who knocks about in the woods with his eyes open sees many 

 curious departures from the normal order of things in plant life. During 

 the pa.st summer, especially, my attention has been called to some un- 

 usual forms of fertile fronds of ferns that may be of interest to the readers 

 of The Plant World. 



The fertile portion of many ferns is often much contracted, at times 

 little more than the veins and spore-cases being left. In others the con- 

 traction is not so marked, but the green tissue remaining is rolled around 

 the fruit-dots. It looks as if there were not enough material to produce 

 the spores and the normal amount of green material at the same time. 

 Conspicuous among the ferns that act in this way are the sensitive fern, 

 ostrich fern, narrow-leaved chain fern, and the royal, interrupted and 

 cinnamon ferns. Every reader of this article is probably familiar with 

 most of these species. It often happens that incompletely fertile fronds 

 are met with that form an interesting series between the ordinary sterile 

 and fertile ones. 



The sensitive fern iOnoclea sensibilis) is familiar to ever>' one. The 

 divisions of the fertile frond are tightly rolled around the fruit-dots, thus 

 forming little berry-like bodies that are clustered along the midribs of the 

 pinnai. When the fern grows in meadows or by the roadside, it often 

 happens that it is cut down in midsummer. The growing end of the 

 rootstock is always well provided with immature fronds, and some of 

 these are sent up in a hurry to finish out the season and store up a food 



