CANADIAN FILICINB^. 223 



S. iorluosa, Muhl. 



This is an extremely local, and A^ery peculiar looking, little sedge-like plant, IJ to 4 

 inches high, growing in tufts in low grounds. The sterile and fertile fronds are unlike, 

 the former resembling bunches of short curled leaves, the latter straighter and projecting 

 above them like a slender culm. Rootstock very minute, horizontal, and creeping; sterile 

 fronds linear, very slender, iiattened, tortuous, scarcely an inch long by a quarter of aline 

 wide ; fertile fronds equally slender, but straighter, 1| to 4 inches long, bearing at the 

 top a triangular-oA'ate fertile appendage, which is 2 to 4 lines broad at the base by usually 

 a little less length, and consists of 4 to 6 pairs of closely placed oblong pinnae ; the two 

 halves of the appendage usually folded together, at least in the dried specimen. 



For this rare American fern but one station is known in Canada, viz., on the shore of 

 Grand Lake, twenty-three miles from Halifax, IST. S., where it was discovered in August, 

 18*79, by a Miss Knight. It has not been found since that time though carefully searched 

 for by Mr. McKay, of Pictou, who says, however, that bush fires have swept over the place 

 since it was got, which may account for its absence. It had previously been recorded by 

 De la Pylaie as occurring in Newfoundland, and its discoverj»^ in Nova Scotia is particularly 

 interesting as confirming the authenticity of that station. 



Genus XX.— OSMUNDA, L., Flowering-Febn, 

 * Sterile fronds fully bipinnate with separate pinnules. 



1. — 0. BEGALI8, L., (Royal-Fern, Flowering-Fern), Swartz, Syu. Fil., 160. Mx., Fl. Bor.- 

 Am., II, 2'73. Gray, Man., 610. Hook, and Baker, Syn. Fil , 421. Provancher, Fl. Can., 

 721. Macoun's Cat., No. 2332. Fowler's N. B. Cat., No. 768. Ball, Trans. N. S. Inst. Nat. 

 Sci., IV, 155. Watt, Can. Nat., IV, 364. Eaton, Ferns of N. A., I, 209. Underwood, Our 

 Nat. Ferns, etc., 113. 



O. spedabilis, Willd., Pursh, II, 058. Hook., Fl. Bor.-Am., II, 265. 



O. regalis, var. spedabilis, Milde, Lawson, Can. Nat. I, 290. 



O. glaucescens, Link. 



An elegant, non-evergreen, pale green fern, commonly 2 to 5 feet high, growing in 

 swamps, wet woods, low thickets, and by the margins of ponds and rivers, sometimes 

 even in running water. The fertile and sterile fronds are unlike, the former producing 

 at their summits a racemose panicle of fructification. Rootstock creeping and greatly 

 thickened with imbricated stalk-bases ; stalks erect, stout, tufted, commonly about half 

 the length of the fronds, smooth or with a little brown deciduous cobwebby wool, their 

 bases dilated to form stipular wings ; sterile fronds ovate-oblong in outline, IJ to 3J feet 

 long by 8 to 20 inches wide, smooth, bipinnate ; pinnœ stalked, with rather leathery, 

 sessile or short-stalked pinnules, which are commonly oblong-oval, obtuse, obliquely- 

 truncate at the base, and crenulate-serrate ; fertile fronds like the sterile except that sev- 

 eral of the upper pinnae are contracted and bipinnate, with the cylindrical divisions non- 

 foliaceous and covered with bright brown sporangia. 



The sterile pinnules vary greatly in size and shape, but none of these variations seem 

 constant enough to justify any attempt at the formation of distinct varieties thereon. In 

 size they run from 9 lines to 2 inches in length by 3 to 8 lines wide, while in shape 



