Woodward. FILICES. 343 



linear reflexed involucres : principal vein of each pinnule closely parallel to its lower 

 margin, the veinlets forking. Eaton, Ferns of N. Amer. i. 135, t. 18 ; Williamson, 

 Fern Etchings, t. 11. Adiantum Americanum, Cornutus, Canad. PI. Hist. 7, t. 6. 



Common among the Coast Ranges, also on Mount San Bernardino ( IV. G. JVright), and in the 

 Yosemite, Lcmmon. The range includes nearly all the United States, British America and north- 

 eastern Asia to the Himalayas. Pacific Coast specimens have the pinnules more deeply lobed 

 than those from the Eastern States. A few South American and Australasian species have the 

 fronds similarly divided, and from them, as well as from young plants of this species, it is evident 

 that one of the two middle divisions is really the proper continuation of the central axis. Cor- 

 nutus's name, though much the oldest, is ante-Linnaean, and therefore has never been adopted. 



9. LOMARIA, Willdenow. 



Sporangia in a continuous band, seated on a special receptacle each side of the 

 . midrib of the fertile pinnae, and covered till mature by an elongated involucre either 

 formed of the recurved and altered margin or (in our species and some others) sepa- 

 rate and closely parallel to the margin. Fronds dimorphous, usually pinuatifid or 

 once pinnate ; the sterile with broader foliaceous pinnae and usually free veins ; the 

 fertile with very narrow pinnae, and the veins often forming a single series of areoles 

 each side of the midrib. 



A genus of about forty-five species, the greater part tropical or recurring in the south temperate 

 zone, some of them with large and showy evergreen fronds. It is closely connected with Blech- 

 nnm, which has the fertile fronds but slightly contracted, and the involucre remote from the 

 margin. 



1. L. Spicant, Desvaux. (DEER-FERN.) Rootstock short and thick, very 

 chatfy : fronds tufted, erect, smooth ; sterile ones nearly sessile or on short stalks, 

 subcoriaceous, narrowly linear-lanceolate, 6 to 30 inches long, 1 to 3 inches wide, 

 tapering from above the middle to both ends, pinnatifid to the rhachis into very 

 numerous closely placed oblong or oblong-linear often upwardly falcate obtuse or 

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

 taller and more erect than the sterile, long-stalked, pinnate ; pinnae less crowded, 

 longer and much narrower than the sterile segments, sessile by a suddenly dilated 

 base ; involucres just within the margin : mature sporangia nearly covering the back 

 of the piling. Berlin Mag. v. (1811) 325; Brackenridge, Ferns of U. S. Expl. 

 Exped. 123; Eaton, Ferns of N. Amer. i. 249, t. 32, fig. 3-5. JBlecknum boreale, 

 Swartz ; Hooker, Brit. Ferns, t. 40. 



On the ground in dense forests, sometimes in open places, from Santa Cruz County (Anderson) 

 to Oregon and northward ; also in Europe, the Caucasus, Kamtschatka and Japan. Some of the 

 Pacific Coast specimens are exactly like the European, but plants growing in rich and shaded 

 localities are very large and tall, forming var. elongata of Hooker's Species Filicum. Blechnum 

 doodioides, Hook. Fl. Bor.-Am. ii. 263, and Sp. Fil. iii. 60, t. 153, is founded on a couple of 

 fronds from British Columbia, in which the lower half is sterile and the upper half fertile, with 

 the fruit broken into short sori, and the outer margin of the pinnules wider than usual. 



10. WOODWARDIA, Smith. CHAIN-FERN. 



Sori oblong or linear, interrupted, occupying paracostal areoles and forming a 

 chain-like row each side of the midribs and midveins. Indusium convex, fixed by 

 its outer margin to the fertile veinlet, free and opening on the inner side. Fronds 

 various ; the veins forming oblong areoles next the midribs, and outside of these 

 either anastomosing or free. 



Besides the following species there are two in the Eastern States, and two or three more in 

 eastern Asia. 



1. V7 1 . radicans, Smith. Rootstock stout, chaffy with abundant ferruginous- 

 brown scales : fronds long-stalked, standing in a circle, often 4 to 6 feet high, or 



