LOMARIA SPICANT. 

 NORTHERN HARD-FERN. 



NATURAL ORDER, FILICES. 



LoMARiA SpicANT, Desveaux. — Rootstock short and thick, very chaffy ; fronds tufted, erect; 

 sterile ones nearly sessile or short-stalked, sub-coriaceous, narrowly linear-lanceolate, eight 

 to twenty-four inches long, one to three inches wide, tapering to both ends, pinnatifid to the 

 rachis into very numerous close-set oblong or oblong-linear, often upwardly curved obtuse 

 or apiculate segments, the lower ones gradually diminished to minute auricles; fertile 

 fronds sometimes three feet high, long-stalked, pinnate ; the pinnae somewhat fewer and 

 more distant, longer, and much narrower than the sterile frond, sessile by a suddenly 

 widened base; involucres distinctly inlra-marginal. (Eaton in the Botany of Wheeler's 

 Expedition. See also Eaton's Ferns of North America.) 



N some of the older botanical works this fern is described 

 as Blechmim boreale, the last name signifying the 

 extreme north, and given in allusion to its high northern range. 

 It is found in the Arctics, and probably grows nearer to the pole 

 than any knovv^n fern. In these regions it is called the " Deer- 

 fern," from its forming part of the scanty herbage on which this 

 very useful animal subsists. Another author, whose name is not 

 in mind, tells us that in " Central California, where it is rarely 

 found in deep mountain ravines, it is known as the Jointed Pod- 

 fern ; " but the application is not very apparent. 



It often happens that a plant will have many common or pop- 

 ular names, or the same name may be applied to many different 

 plants, and it becomes annoying to the botanist to be called to 

 decide what plant may be referred to by them. In the present 

 case, if we may choose one among a large number, it would be 

 Hard-fern or Deer-fern, as being in the best accord with its pop- 

 ular history. Few have had more botanical names than this. 

 Since the time of Linnaeus, who called it Osmunda Spicant, it has 



(Si) 



