CHAPTER XVII 
WALKING LEAF 
Camptosorus rhizophyllus. 
Rootstock ascending, short, slender, somewhat chaffy: scales 
minute, strongly reticulate in reddish-brown, lanceolate or nar- 
rowly lanceolate-deltoid or, apparently abnormally, ovate, acu- 
minate, entire or with a few short cilia: leaves fascicled at apex 
of rootstock: roots springing from outer sides of junctures of 
petioles and rootstock, one to each petiole. 
Leaves two to fifteen inches long, decumbent or ascending, 
imperfectly evergreen. 
Petioles four-fifths of an inch to six inches long, slender, flaccid; 
below chestnut-brown about one-eighth to one-third of length; 
above green; laterally narrowly winged for more or less of length 
from apex downward; at base bearing a few scales similar to scales 
of rootstock, sometimes an occasional narrow scale above: fibro- 
vascular bundles two in lower part of petioles, roundish, uniting 
above into one roundish-deltoid in section. 
Blades lanceolate with flagelliform apex proliferous at tip, 
or lanceolate or ligulate with obtuse or acute non-proliferous 
apex; at base auricled, cordate, hastate, or, rarely, acute; auri- 
cles sometimes prolonged laterally and obtuse to flagelliform, 
occasionally proliferous at tip of prolongation: margins entire or 
