5 cm. wide; venation regularly forming areoles without included secondary areoles; 

 fruiting spike on a slender elongate stalk that is to 17 cm. long, compressed- 

 cylindric, apiculate, to 4 cm. long and 3-5 mm. in diameter; sporangia to about 

 30 on each side of the rachis. 



In moist open woods, meadows, alluvial woodlands and swamps, in Tex. rare in 

 several cos. in the n. Timber Belt of e. Tex. and in Jefferson Co. in the Coastal 

 Prairies, reported (fide Clausen) from Denton and Harris cos., reported from 

 Ariz.; from P. E. I. and N. S., s. to Fla., w. to Ont., Tex. and (?) Ariz.; also 

 Mex., Alas, and Euras. 



Fam. 7. Osmundaceae R. Br. Cinnamon Fern Family 



Large terrestrial to subaquatic plants of low moist soils and wet places with 

 creeping to erect woody rhizomes, rarely arborescent, the roots hard and fibrous; 

 fronds erect-spreading, occasionally as much as 18 dm. or more tall, clustered; 

 stipes scaleless; blades bipinnatifid to bipinnate, rather coarse, uniform to entirely 

 dimorphic or with some of the pinnae dimorphic, with the usually forked veins 

 free and extending to the margins of the ultimate segments; sporangia in dense 

 paniculate clusters, entirely replacing the vegetative tissue of certain pinnae or 

 whole fronds, naked, large, globose, usually short-stalked, longitudinally cleft 

 into two halves, with the ring or annulus few-celled or wanting; spores green. 



This family comprises three genera, the following and two Old World genera, 

 that include about 20 species. 



1. Osmunda L. 



Rather coarse plants; fronds in a large crown from a woody rhizome, arranged 

 in two circles, the inner circle fertile, erect and developing first, the outer circle 

 sterile and spreading; blades wholly spore-bearing or with part of the pinnae 

 spore-bearing either near the middle or at the apex, the spore-bearing tissue red 

 or brown; sporangia short-stalked, densely clustered on the ultimate veinlets; 

 spores copious, green. 



About 10 species, mostly in the north temperate regions of both hemispheres. 



1. Sterile blades pinnate-pinnatifid, the ultimate segments entire; fertile fronds 

 separate, cinnamon-colored at maturity 1. O. cinnamomea. 



1. Sterile blades bipinnate, the pinnules serrulate; upper pinnae modified for 

 spore production 2. O. regalis var. spectabilis. 



1. Osmunda cinnamomea L. Cinnamon fern. Fig. 10. 



Fronds several, erect, dimorphic, to 15 dm. tall; stipes irregularly coated with 

 a loose cinnamon-colored tomentum; sterile blades lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, 

 acuminate, to 1 m. long and 35 cm. wide; pinnae opposite to subopposite, deeply 

 pinnatifid, with a tuft of tomentum persisting at the base of each pinna; fertile 

 blades succulent, nonfoliose, soon withering. 



Usually in moist or wet soil of swamps, marshes, on open or wooded seepage 

 slopes, along streams, on the edge of lakes and bogs and occasionally on wet 

 ledges in e. Okla. and in Tex. rather generally distributed in the Timber Belt, s. 

 to Orange Co. in the Coastal Prairies, w. to Gonzales, Lee and Milam cos. in the 

 Blackland Prairies, with a lone station in Uvalde Co. on the Edwards Plateau; 

 throughout e. N. A. from Nfld. to Minn., s. to cen. Fla. and Tex. 



2. Osmunda regalis L. var. spectabilis (Willd.) Gray. Royal fern. Fig. 10. 

 Fronds clustered, to 18 dm. tall; stipes slender, glabrous; blades broadly elliptic 



to oblong-ovate, with the lower 2 to 6 pairs of pinnae sterile, the upper pinnae 

 transformed into fertile ones. 



51 



