SCHIZAEACEAE 5 



FAMILY 3. SCHIZAEACEAE Eeichenb. CURLY-GRASS FAMILY. 



Plants various in habit, with erect simple pinnate or dichotomous leaf- 

 blades. Sporanges borne in double rows on narrow specialized lobes or seg- 

 ments, ovoid, sessile, naked or indusiate, provided with a transverse apical ring 

 and opening vertically by a longitudinal slit. 



Leaves twining. 1. LYGODIUM. 

 Leaves erect. 



Leaf-blades linear, simple, triquetrous or rarely flattish. 2. ACTINOSTACHYS. 



Leaf-blades 1-several times pinnate. 3. ANEMIA. 



1. LYGODIUM Sw. 



Mainly tropical plants, with climbing or twining leaves, the rachis wiry and more 

 or less flexuous. Leafy parts consisting of stalked lobed, pinnate or pinnately com- 

 pound secondary divisions arising in pairs from alternate slender or short naked 

 stalks, the primary branches. Fertile leaflets usually narrower, the obovoid sporangia 

 borne in a double row upon the contracted segments. Indusia scale-like, fixed by 

 their broad bases to short oblique veinlets, opening antrorsely. 



Small plants with palmately lobed sterile leaflets; fertile leaflets greatly contracted, forming a 



loose terminal panicle. 1. L. palmatum. 



Larger plants, with 1-3-pinnate leaflets, the fertile ones not greatly contracted. 2. L. Japonicum. 



1. Lygodium palmatum (Bernh.) Sw. Rootstock slender, wide-creeping. 

 Leaves 515 dm. long, narrow, vine-like; sterile leaflets orbicular to broadly reniform, 

 2.5-6 cm. long, 3-8 cm. broad, dichotomously pedatifid i to the distance to the 

 cordate base into 4-8> spreading unequal lobes, thus subpalmate, the outer lobes 

 small and rounded or emarginate, the main ones oblong to lanceolate, obtusish; 

 fertile leaflets usually terminal, 3-4-pinnate, the divisions narrowly foliaceous. 



In low woods and thickets, New Hampshire and Massachusetts to Florida; also in 

 Kentucky and Tennessee. Mainly coastal. Summer. CLIMBING FERN. 



2. Lygodium Japonicum (Thunb.) Sw. Sterile divisions ample, petiolate, 

 ovate-deltoid, 10-14 cm. long, 9-12 cm. broad, pinnate, with 2-5 pairs of elongated 

 linear-lanceolate segments, these gradually smaller toward the apex and often con- 

 fluent, the lower ones pinnately incised; fertile divisions similar, but usually more 

 deeply incised, 1-3 pinnate, the ultimate segments leafy, subrhombic or obtusely ovate. 



Escaped from cultivation along roadsides near Thomasville, Georgia. Native of Asia. 



2. ACTINOSTACHYS Wall. 



Mostly small plants with simple linear triquetrous or flattish leaves; fertile 

 segments terminal in a penicillate tuft, spuriously digitate. Sporanges borne in 2 

 rows. Indusium continuous, formed of the narrowly reflexed margin of the segment. 



1. Actinostachys German! Fee. Leaves rigidly erect, 1 or several from a 

 bristly tuber borne upon a slender chestnut-brown rootstock, 5-15 cm. long, about 

 1 mm. in diameter, triangular or flattish in drying; fertile segments 1-4 pairs, 8-15 

 mm. long, the sporanges in 2 rows, often appearing in 4's from crowding, the mid- 

 vein pilose. [Schizaea Germani Prantl.] 



In decaying wood, hammocks, southern peninsular Florida. Also in Guadeloupe. 



3. ANEMIA Sw. 



Erect plants, with creeping or ascending rootstocks. Leaves (in our species) 

 with the lowermost pair of leaflets of some of the blades greatly elongated, often 

 overtopping the blade, and bearing numerous panicles of sporanges in two rows on 

 the back of very narrow divisions. [Ornithopteris Bernh.] 



Leaf-blades simply pinnate. 1. A Mexicana. 



Leaf-blades pinnately decompound 2. A. adiantifolia. 



1. Anemia Mexicana Kl. Petioles 2-4 dm. long; leaf -blades of equal length, 

 with a large terminal leaflet and from 4-6 pairs of lateral ones; leaflets ovate- 

 lanceolate, short-stalked, somewhat leathery, smooth; veins free: panicles long-stalked, 

 overtopping the leaf. 



In dry soil, western and southern Texas and adjacent Mexico. 



