FERN FAMILY 



33 



3. Notholaena californica D. C. Eaton. 

 California Cloak-fern. Fig. 67. 



Notholaena californica D. C. Eaton, Bull. Torrey Club 10: 27. 1883. 



Rhizomes nodose-multicipital, densely paleaceous; scales rigidly 

 acicular, 3.5-4.5 mm. long, dark reddish brown to blackish, opaque, 

 denticulate. Fronds several or numerous, fasciculate, erect-spread- 

 ing, long-stipitate, 4-15 cm. long; stipes 3-12 cm. long, brown to light 

 castaneous ; blade.s broadly deltoid-pentagonal, acutish to acuminate, 

 2-5 cm. long, 2-A cm. broad, 3-pinnate as to the large inequilateral 

 deltoid basal pinnae, gradually simpler above, the pinnae and segments 

 all close, the ultimate divisions oblong or deJtoid-oblong, rounded- 

 obtuse, inequilateral, spar.=ely glandular-pulverulent above, beneath 

 rather densely yellowish-ceraceous at maturity, sometimes paler and 

 less ceraceous ; rachises brownish, always evident ; margins recurved 

 but not concealing the sporangia, these borne in a continuous line ; 

 leaf tissue rigidly thick-herbaceous or coriaceous. 



Crevices of rocks, Sonoran Zones; Catalina Island, and desert slopes of .San 

 Jacinto Mountains, Slover Mountain, and southern San Diego County, Cali- 

 fornia; also in western Arizona (Congress Junction) and Lower California. 

 Type locality: near San Diego. 



^. 



^ 



\ J 



4. Notholaena jonesii ]\Iaxon. 

 Jones' Cloak-fern. Fig. 68. 



Notholaena jonesii Ma.xon, Am. Fern. Journ. 7: lOS. 1917. 



Rhizome short, oblique, conspicuously paleaceous, the 

 scales thin, bright brown, linear, very long-attenuate, 

 with flexuous capillary tips. Fronds several or numer- 

 ous, depressed-spreading, 3-16 cm. long, the stipes 

 curved, reddish brown ; blades 2-9 cm. long, oblong- 

 ovate to narrowly triangular, 2-pinnate or rarely 3-pin- 

 nate ; pinnae 2i-7 pairs, opposite to alternate, spreading, 

 triangular-oblong, with 2-5 pairs of distant, entire to 

 crenately lobed, rounded or subcordate pinnules below 

 the larger terminal segment or, rarely, the larger ones 

 again pinnate; segments fleshy, herbaceous, glabrous, 

 subglaucous, not at all pulverulent, mostly short-stalked ; 

 sporangia strongly confluent in a broad submarginal 

 band. 



Crevices of rocks, Upper Sonoran Zone; desert slopes of the 

 San Bernardino and San Jacinto Mountains, and in the mountains 

 of Santa Barbara County, California; also in southwestern Utah; 

 rare and local. Type locality : Panamint Canon, Inyo County, 

 California. 



Family 3. MARSILEACEAE. 

 Pepperwort Family. 

 Perennial, herbaceous plants rooting in mud, with slender creeping rhizomes. 

 Leaves long-petioled and with 2- or 4-foliolate blades, or filiform and lacking a 

 blade. Sori borne within bony, ovoid to globose, several-celled, pedunculate spo- 

 rocarps (conceptacles), these arising from the rhizome near the base of the leaf- 

 stalks or more or less consolidated with them. Spores of two kinds, megaspores 

 and microspores, prothallia from the former producing mainly archegonia and 

 those from the latter antheridia. 



Three genera, the two following and Rcgnellidium (monotypic), of South America. 

 Leaves strongly differentiated into elongate petiole and 4-foliolate blade; sporocarps ovoid. 1. Marsilea. 

 Leaves filiform, lacking a definite blade; sporocarps globose. 2. Piliilarta. 



1. MARSILEA L. Sp. PI. 1099. 1753. 



Plants of shallow ponds, ditches, and marshy shores. Leaves solitary or subfasciculate, 

 long-petioled ; blades 4-foliolate. Sporocarps ovoid, with 2 teeth near the base, 2-celled 

 vertically, with many transverse partitions, at length dehiscent into 2 valves and emitting 

 a mucilaginous band of tissue, this bearing the sori at intervals within membranous envel- 

 opes. Sori including both megasporangia and microsporangia. the former few. with solitarv 

 megaspores, the latter many, with numerous microspores. [Named in honor of Giovanni 

 Alarsigli, an Italian botanist, who died about 1804.] 



A genus of very wide distribution, comprising about 55 species, mainly of the Old World. In addition 

 to the following, several occur in the southern United States. 



Upper tooth of the sporocarp sharp, conspicuous; megasporangia 12-20 in each sorus. 1. M. vestita. 



Upper tooth a rounded tubercle, or obsolete; megasporangia 6-9 in each sorus. 2. M. oligospora. 



