CANADIAN FILTCINBiE. 225 



wither early in the summer), are contracted and bipinnate, with the divisions cylindrical, 

 non-foliaceous and covered with dark-green sporangia. 



This fern is subject to slight variations in the shape of its pinnœ and pinnules. The 

 former are occasionally acutish instead of obtuse, and Prof Lawson, in Can. Nat., mentions 

 a lax form in which they are remarkably short and somewhat triangular ; the latter are 

 sometimes seen obscurely crenulate toward the apex. The position of the fertile pinnœ, 

 instead of being about the middle of the frond, may be near the top or bottom of it, and 

 the number may be unequal on the two sides of the rachis. Earely some, or even all, the 

 fertile segments retain a foliaceous character and bear marginal fructification. 



Though unaware of their ever having been used, the rhizomes of this fern possess 

 properties somewhat similar to those of O. regalis, and the dried fronds have been utilized 

 in the Lower Provinces as a winter fodder for sheep. 



The Interrupted-Fern is very common throughout most parts of Canada, from Nova 

 Scotia to Lake Superior, and probably finds its western limit in Manitoba. In the east it 

 prefers swamps, but west of Lake Superior it is found in open woods. Not uncommon 

 around Lake Nipigon and Thunder Bay. — Mucoun. Collected by Bourgeau at Sturgeon 

 Lake, some hundred miles north-west of Lake Superior, and, according to Milde, on Lake 

 "Winnipeg. 



3.— O. CINNAMOMEA. L., (Ciimamon-Fern), Swartz, Syn. Fil., 160. Mx., Fl. Bor.-Am., 

 II, 21S. Pursh, II, 65Y. Hook., Fl. Bor.-Am., II, 265. Gray, Man., 6*70. Hook, and 

 Baker, Syn. Fil., 426. ProA^ancher, Fl. Can., *721. Lawson, Can. Nat., I, 290. Macoun's 

 Cat., No. 2334. Fowler's N. B. Cat., No. ^768. Ball, Trans. N. S. Inst. Nat. Sci., IV, 155. 

 Eaton, Ferns of N. A., I, 22^. Underwood, Our Nat. Ferns, etc., 114. 



O. Claytoniana, Conrad, not of L. 



Struthiopterts cinnamomea, Bernh. 



The Cinnamon-Fern is a non-evergreen species, growing in large clumps, from 1 J to 

 5 feet high, in cedar swamps, low grounds and moist thickets. The sterile and fertile 

 fronds are unlike, the former, which are foliaceous, forming, as in O. Ckujtoniana, a green, 

 vase-like surrounding for the latter, which are cinnamon-colou.red, non-foliaceous and 

 erect. The fertile fronds, which mature their fruit as they unfold, appear before the sterile 

 and wither early in the season, before the latter complete their growth. Eootstock creep- 

 ing, much thickened with imbricated stalk-bases ; stalks stout, erect, the sterile about half 

 as long as the fronds but the fertile about the same length, stipulate at the base, when 

 young clothed with abundant rusty wool ; sterile fronds oblong-lanceolate in outline, 1 to 

 3| feet long by 6 inches to 1^ feet wide, densely rusty-woolly when young but nearly 

 smooth at maturity, pointed or even acuminate, pinnate ; piuutc short-stalked, oblong- 

 lanceolate, acute, deeply pinnatifid into ovate-oblong, obtuse, entire, oblique pinnules ; 

 fertile fronds very woolly when young, having all the pinuse contracted and bipinnate, 

 with the divisions cylindrical, non-foliaceous and covered with cinnamon-brown sporangia. 



In the absence of fructification, this plant is not always easily distinguishable from 

 O. Claytmiiana, the most evident differences being that in O. cinnmnomea the apex of the 

 frond, as well as of each of the individual pinnse, is decidedly acute or even acuminate, 

 usually, too, the pinnœ are narrower. As stated by Mr. Davenport in the Torrey Bulletin, 



Sec IV., 1884. 29. 



