THE AMERICAN BOTANIST, 51 



traveler. The remarkable shape of its fronds add greatl3' 

 to its attractiveness in the eyes of those accustomed only 

 to seeing ferns of the more usual shapes; indeed the skilled 

 filicologist has to admit that this form is rare among 

 ferns. 



In its native lands, the star fern grows on half shad3^ 

 banks and prefers a moist situation, though it may often 

 be found in full sun on slopes so dry that one wonders 

 how it survives at all. During most of the 3'ear it may be 

 exposed to an amount of isolation that no fern in the 

 Northern United States, with the possible exception of the 

 bracken, could ^vithstand. And the star fern would prob- 

 abh' fare as ill as any other species in such locations w^ere 

 it not for its covering of close, tawn3' hairs that prevents 

 rapid evaporation from the leaf. When the heat becomes 

 too intense, or when the ground is so dr\^ as to no longer 

 yield moisture, the fronds instead of dying, simply roll up 

 and wait until it rains, when they unroll again ready to 

 take up life anew. 



This fern's method of fruiting is very characteristic. 

 The veins in the frond anastomose at frequent intervals 

 and the spore-cases are borne copioush^ along these veins 

 throughout the frond, making it look as if it had been 

 embroidered. This, however, is not the plant's onh' 

 method of reproduction. In the notches of the leaves little 

 buds are formed, and as the leaves grow old and become 

 prostrate these buds produce new plants. One ma3' often 

 collect specimens in which the old fronds each bear several 

 plantlets. 



The way in which the star fern fruits makes it a near 

 relative of Vittaria, Tasnitis, Antrophjum and Meniscium, 

 all small tropical genera containing no species with com- 

 mon names. Not much farther removed are the genera 

 Notholiena and Gymnogramma, in fact the plant called 

 Gymnogramma riifa is thought by some to form a ver3- 

 good connecting link between the latter genus and the 

 genus Hemionitis, to -which the star fern belongs. 



As fern students now regard Hemionitis it contains 

 upwards of half a dozen species, four of which belong to 



