OPHIOGLOSSACE^E. (ADDER's-TONGUE FAMILY.) 093 



the apex a small patch of thickened oblong cells, the rudiment of a transverse 

 ring. Fronds tall and upright, growing in large crowns from thickened root- 

 stocks, once or twice pinnate; veins forking and free. Spores green. (Os- 

 munder, a Saxon name of the Celtic divinity, Thor.) 



* Sterile fronds trulij bipinnate. 



1. O. regalis, L. (FLOWERING FERN.) Very smooth, pale green (2- 

 5 high); sterile pinnules 13-25, varying from oblong-oval to lance-oblong, 

 finely serrulate, especially toward the apex, otherwise entire, or crenately lobed 

 toward the rounded, oblique and truncate, or even cordate and semi-auriculate 

 base, sessile or short-stalked (1-2' long) ; the fertile racemose-panicled at the 

 summit of the frond. Swamps and wet woods ; common. The cordate pin- 

 nules sometimes found here are commoner in Europe. May, June. (Eu.) 



* * Sterile fronds once pinnate ; pinnce deeply pinnatifid ; the lobes entire. 



2. O. Claytoniana, L. (PI. 20, fig. 1-3.) Clothed with loose wool 

 when young, soon smooth ; fertile fronds taller than the sterile (2 -4 high); 

 pinna oblong-lanceolate, with oblong obtuse divisions; some (2 -5 pairs) of 

 the middle pinnce fertile, these entirely pinnate; sporangia greenish, turning 

 brown. Low grounds, common. May. Fruiting as it unfolds. 



3. O. cinnamomea, L. (CINNAMON FERN.) Clothed with rusty wool 

 when young; sterile fronds tallest (at length 3 -5 high), smooth when full 

 grown, the lanceolate pinnse piuuatifid into broadly oblong obtuse divisions ; 



fertile fronds separate, appearing earlier from the same rootstock and soon 

 withering (1-2 high), contracted, twice pinnate, covered with the cinnamon- 

 colored sporangia. Var. FROND6SA is a rare occasional state, in which some 

 of the fronds are sterile below and more sparsely fertile at their summit, or 

 rarely in the middle. Swamps and low copses, everywhere. May. 



ORDER 132. OPHIOGLOSSACEJE. (ADDER'S-TOXGUE 



FAMILY.) 



Leafy and often somewhat fleshy plants ; the leaves (frondi) simple 

 or branched, often fern-like in appearance, erect in vernation, developed 

 from underground buds formed either inside the base of the old stalk or 

 by the side of it, and bearing in special spikes or panicles rather large 

 subcoriaceous bivalvular sporangia formed from the main tissue of the 

 fruiting branches. Prothallus underground, not green, monoecious. A 

 small order, separated from Ferns on account of the different nature of 

 the sporangia, the erect vernation, etc. 



1. Botrycliium. Sporangia in pinnate or compound spikes, distinct. Veins free. 



2. Ophioglossuin. Sporangia cohering in a simple spike. Veins reticulated. 



1. BOTBYCHIUM, Swartz. MOONWORT. (PI. 20.) 



Rootstock very short, erect, with clustered fleshy roots (which are full of 

 starch, in very minute, irregular granules !) ; the base of the naked stalk con- 

 taining the bud for the next year's frond ; frond with an anterior fertile and 

 a posterior sterile segment; the former mostly 1 -3-pinnate, the contracted 

 divisions bearing a double row of sessile naked sporangia; these are distinct, 

 rather coriaceous, not reticulated, globular, without a ring, and open trans- 



