CANADIAN FILICINEiE. 189 



This is a species with dimorphous fronds, growing 1 to 3 feet high, and found on the 

 ground, generally in rich, cool woods. Eootstock short, thick, and very chaffy ; sterile 

 fronds erect, smooth, leathery, very short-stalked, narrowly-lanceolate, tapering to both 

 ends, and pinnatifid to the rachis into oblong or linear-obloug, upwardly curved, entire or 

 obscurely crenulate, generally obtuse segments, the lower of which gradually grow shorter 

 and shorter until they appear like little distinct auricles along the stalk ; fertile fronds 

 nearly similar in general outline, birt long-stalked (greatly overtopping the sterile), and 

 pinnate into fewer and more distinct segments, which are much narrower and somewhat 

 longer than those of the barren fronds ; veins free in the sterile fronds, but forming a 

 series of areolae on each side of the midrib in the fertile ; indusia placed close to, but dis- 

 tinct from, the margins of the segments ; sori. when ripe, nearly covering the backs of the 

 pinnte. 



This is a somewhat variable fern, and in Europe a great many varieties, chiefly founded 

 on differences in the degree of divisions of the fronds aud toothing of the pinna% have 

 been described. Var. serralum, "Wolleston. has the margins of the pinniP strongly and 

 doubly serrate, and a very peculiar form found in British Columbia, with the lower half 

 of the fronds sterile and the fructification broken into short sori, formed Blec/umm doodioides. 

 Hooker. A specimen from New Westminster, B. C, shows the lower fourth of a fertile 

 frond sterile, but otherwise as in the typical plant. Forking fronds and pinna? are not 

 very uncommon in this fern. 



The Deer-Fern, which extends along the Pacific from California to Alaska, is in Canada 

 confined to the coast of British Columbia west of the coast range of mountains, where, 

 however, it is abundant. Nootka, Vancouver Island. — Merlens. New Westminster. — J. 

 Fletcher. Yale. — Macoun. Drew's Harbour and on Queen Charlotte Islands. — G. M. 

 Dawson. Observatory Inlet. — Smuler. Pitt River. — A. .T. Hill. 



Genus IX. -WOODWARDIA, Smith, Chain-Fern. 



1. — W. ViRCiiNiCA, Smith, (Virginia Chain-Fern), Swartz, Syn. Fil., 11*7. Pursh, II, 

 6*70. Gray, Man., C60. Lawson, Can. Nat., I, 2*78. Hook, and Baker, Syn. Fil., 188. 

 Macoun's Cat., No. 2318. Ball, Trans. N. S. Ins. Nat. Sci., IV, 149. Eaton, Ferns of N. A., 

 II. 45. Underwood, Our Nat. Ferns, etc., 90. 



W. Banisteriana, Mx., Fl. Bor.-Am. II, 263. 



W. thelyplerioides, Pursh, II, 6*70. 



W. Chamissoi, Brackenridge. 



Blechnum Virginicum, L. 



Doodia Virginica, Presl. 



A handsome, non-evergreen fern found growing in swamps, and atttiiniug a height of 

 2 to 3 feet, or in the South even 5 feet. Eootstock fleshy, 3 to 5 lines thick, extensively 

 creeping, and chaffy at the advancing end ; stalks, forming about one-half the height of 

 the plant, erect, stout, and blackened for some distance above their origin, which black- 

 ness gradually changes to a dull brown above ; fronds rather leathery, oblong-lanceolate 

 in general outline, short pointed at the apex, and pinnate ; pinnae numerous, sessile, 

 linear-lanceolate, and pinnatifid nearly to the rachis into oblong, minutely serrulate seg- 

 ments ; veins forming a single row of narrow areolœ, which emit free veinlets, along the 



