98 CHEILAXTIIES VESTITA. HAIRY LIP-FERN. 



and delicate, graceful habit. This one has little of such charac- 

 teristics to commend it. Though the fronds are cut and numer- 

 ously divided, there is a stiffness and heaviness about the plant 

 unusual in so many of its ferny neighbors. This is increased by 

 the heavy, coarse hair covering the fronds, and from which its spe- 

 cific name vcstita has been derived. There is also an additional 

 heaviness in the appearance from the great number of rather 

 large spores, which often almost cover the back of the fertile 

 frond. Again, the curving back of the margin of the lobes 

 of the frond, from the manner of which the generic name Is 

 derived, makes the fronds look unusually thick for a graceful 

 fern. Still It is a species which Is very much admired by fern- 

 lovers ; and fern-culturists make very pretty specimens of It, 

 when the best conditions for its growth are understood. 



This turning back of the edges of the leaves or fronds is one 

 of the peculiarities of the genus. In the time of Linnaeus it 

 would have been regarded as a Plcris, which also has the edges 

 of the fronds recurved ; and Indeed the genus founded by Swartz 

 was established on a species from the Cape of Good Hope, pre- 

 viously known as a Plcris. The date of this establishment Is 

 fixed by the pteridologists as 1806; but the species here illus- 

 trated had been discovered by Michaux three years before, and 

 was referred by him to A^ephrodiuni, a genus established by 

 Richard, a French botanist, a few years before, and it Is described 

 In his works as NcpJirodium lanosiun. When found to be more 

 properly belonging to the new genus Chcilanthcs, it was removed 

 to that genus, and named Chcilanthcs vcstita. Some botanists 

 have thought that as Michaux first described it, his specific 

 name might at least have been preserved when It was taken to 

 Cheilanthes, and they call it C. lanosa ; but Professor Eaton, In 

 his "Ferns of North America," properly shows that though it is 

 sometimes desirable to carry on these names where changes are 

 made, It is not obligatory on the botanist to do so, and therefore 

 we must abide by Swartz's name, CJicilanthcs vcstita, though 

 IMIchaux and not he was the original describer of the plant ; and 



