BOTRYCHIUM TERNATUM. 

 TERNATE GRAPE-FERN. 



NATURAL ORDER, FILICES. 



BoTRYCHIUM TERNATUM, Swartz. — Plant fleshy, sparsely hairy or nearly smooth, usually from 

 twelve to fourteen inches high ; sterile segment long-petioled from the base of the plant, 

 broadly deltoid, ternate, variously decompound; primary, secondary, and even tertiary 

 divisions stalked ; ultimate divisions from roundish-reniform to obliquely ovate or ovate- 

 lanceolate, crenulate, or toothed or incised; fertile segments twice to four times pinnate, 

 usually much taller than the sterile ; bud pilose. (y.TiXoW'i Ferns of North America. See 

 also Williamson's Ferris of Kentucky, and, under the name of Botrychium hinarioides, 

 Gray's Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States, Chapman's Flora of the 

 Southern O^nited States, and WoonW Class- Book of Botany.) . 



HEREVER practicable it is preferable to select the 

 botanical descriptions from text-books in general use, 

 and easily accessible to the student. In this case the description 

 is taken from the rarer but very valuable work of Professor 

 Eaton, because to him chiefly belongs the credit of determining 

 the proper name which, according to botanical rules, this fern is 

 entitled to ; and of showing the true relationship Avhich many 

 forms bear to it that have been described and named as distinct 

 species by botanists who preceded him. The extent to which 

 species varied was not known to botanists of the past genera- 

 tions as it is known to us, and even the distinguished botanist who 

 gave our plant the name of BotTychumi teriiatum also gave to 

 another form the name of BotiycJiium hmai'ioides — the name used 

 by Dr. Gray and others as quoted, but which is now regarded as 

 only a form of the same thing. So variable is this fern, and so 

 little was known of the range of this variation, that no less than 

 fourteen names are recorded by Eaton as having been given to 

 forms as species, which he now regards simply as varieties, and 

 the names therefore rankino- as litde more than svnonvms. Two 



