Botrychium, OPHIOGLOSSACE^. 331 



have been collected in Asia. Professor Brewer notes that the stems often throw out small 

 branches from the joints the second year. 



4. E. hiemale, Linn. Stems 1 to 4 feet high, green, rough, 8-34-furrovved ; 

 ridges with two indistinct lines of tubercles : sheaths rather long, cylindrical, ap- 

 pressed, marked with one or two black girdles ; the ridges of the sheaths obscurely 

 4-carinate ; teeth membranaceous, fuscous, soon deciduous. Al. Braun, 1. c. 89 ; 

 Milde, 1. c. 511, t. 29, 30. 



Attributed to San Francisco in Milde's monograph. Common in British America and the 

 Atlantic States, and widely distributed in many varieties throughout Europe and Asia. Not 

 easily distinguished from small forms of the last. Under the microscope the section of the stem 

 shows rounder vallecular hollows, and some other slight differences. 



5. E. IcCvigatum, Al. Braun, 1. c. 87. Steins 1 to 5 feet high, seldom thicker 

 than a goose-quill, pale-green, 14- 30-furrowed ; the ridges almost smooth : sheaths 

 long, sensibly enlarged upwards, marked with a black girdle at the base of the 

 mostly deciduous fuscous white-margined teeth, and rarely at the base of the sheath 

 also ; ridges of the sheath with a single central carina, and sometimes with faint and 

 short lateral ones. Milde, 1. c. 546, t. 32. 



Silver Mountain, by streams, at about 6,400 feet elevation (Brewer), and collected somewhere in 

 California by Coulter ; Oregon to Ohio and Louisiana. Readily known by the pale smooth stems 

 and ampliated sheaths. It bears slender branches more frequently than other species of the group. 



ORDER CXXI. OPHIOGLOSSACE^l. 



Leafy plants ; the leaves (fronds) simple or branched, often fern-like, erect in 

 vernation, developed from underground buds formed from one to three years in 

 advance either within the base of the stalk of the old frond or by the side of it, 

 bearing in special spikes or panicles subcoriaceous exannulate bivalvular sporangia, 

 formed from the main tissue of the fruiting segments of the frond. Prothallus 

 under-ground, destitute of chlorophyll, monoecious. 



An order consisting of three genera, the two here described and ffelminthostachys of the East 

 Indies, and including about twenty species in all. Ophioglossaccce are now separated from Filices 

 because of differences in the prothalline condition, and because the sporangia are formed from the 

 main tissue of the frond, and not from the surface hairs, or trichomes, as in true ferns. The 

 erect vernation also distinguishes them. Their true position is yet undecided. 



1. BOTRYCHIUM, Swartz. GRAPE-FERN. MOONWORT. 



Fronds with a posterior pinnatifid or compound sterile segment and an anterior 

 panicled fertile segment, the separate sporangia in a double row on the branches 

 of the panicle. Bud enclosed in the base of the stalk. Veins free. 



Ten species are now recognized, of which seven are found in North America. 



1. B. simplex, Hitchcock. Plant smooth, fleshy, not over 6 inches high : 

 sterile segment petioled, usually set near the base of the plant, varying from simple 

 and roundish-obovate in small plants to triangular-ovate and deeply lobed, or even 

 fully ternate with incised divisions in the most developed forms ; lobes broadly 

 obovate-cuneate or slightly lunate, the outer margin obscurely crenulate, sometimes 

 incised ; veins flabellately forking ; fertile segment once or twice pinnate. Am. 

 Journ. Sci. vi. 103, t. 8 ; Davenport, Notes on B. simplex, with plate ; Eaton, Ferns 

 of K Amer. i. 121, t. 17 ; Williamson. Fern Etchings, t. 60, A. 



Var. compositum, Milde. A low alpine form with the sterile segment an inch 

 long or less, ternate, or composed of three ovate incised segments. 



Foot of Lyell Glacier, at 10,200 feet altitude (John Muir), and in other elevated places in the 

 Sierra Nevada (Miss Pclton and Dr. Gray) ; also in Yellowstone Park. The species extends 

 eastward to the Atlantic, and is known from northern Europe. 



