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J-'E/iXS. 



rachis, or rather nearer to the base ; the lower pairs of sterile pinnae 

 below these curious rolled up ones, are smaller than the upper leafy 

 pairs which expand into a fine ovate foliaceous frond. 



There is an interruption in the outline of the frond, caused by the 

 closely contracted fertile pinnaj. At a first glance you would really 

 imagine that you saw a number of hairy caterpillars feasting on the 

 green frond. As the season advances, these narrowed contracted pinna; 

 acquire a deep brown colour, still bearing a strange resemblance to 

 some predaceous insect; by the end of July they begin to shed the 

 spores and shrivel up, but cling for a while to the rachis till they finally 

 drop off, leaving a naked vacant place on the stalk between the upper 

 and lower leafy portions of the frond. The soft, woolly covering 

 that we first noticed has almost disappeared ; it had fulfilled its part in 

 the economy of the plant : like a warm and comfortable great coat, it 

 had guarded the young plant from injury during the capricious season, 

 when it made its first appeararce, and now is cast off as no longer 

 needed. The usual colour of our Osmunda, during its earlier stages of 

 growth, is a very light yellowish-green, but as the fronds increase in 

 size and the summer advances, the now largely developed fronds (and 

 truly it is a stately plant) become of a deep, sad green. I have 

 measured full-grown fronds of Osmunda Claytoniana five feet six inches 

 in height, and I have been told that many are found still higher. 



The usual habitat of this fern is the dry beds of old water-courses, 

 swampy places and wet meadows. The stipe and rachis are yellowish in 

 old i)lants. The root-stock survives to a great age ; I knew a plant 

 growing in one spot just below the orchard at Oaklands, Rice Lake, my 

 old home, for more than forty years ; when last I visited the spot 

 the same old root was still sending up its annual cluster of noble 

 fronds, as fresh and as grand looking as when first I noticed the plant, 

 in the year 1 840. 



The age of some species of ferns, especially that of the Osmundas 

 and the Onocleas, appears almost to reach that of a tree, for, having 

 paid much attention to these interesting plants, I have known the same 

 old standard root-stocks for a number of years past, unchanged in their 

 character, unless it were that they became more vigorous in sending up 

 larger and more fruiting fronds. 



The subject seems to have excited little attention hitherto, but is 

 a fertile field for investigation, which I recommend to my readers. 



In olden times the early settlers made use of the young, tender 

 heads of this fern as a pot-herb, likening its flavor to that of Asparagus. 

 One point in its favour may be noticed, that the vegetable is (juite 

 harmless and may be used without fear of its being poisonous. 



