CHAPTER V 



POLYPODY 



Polypodium vulgare. 



Rootstock slender, creeping, branching, brown or, at tips, 

 green, chaffy: scales numerous, small, brown; under a lens 

 yellow or orange, or margins subcolorless, the centre often 

 banded lengthwise in yellow or orange or reddish-orange-brown; 

 ovate or lanceolate, acuminate, cordate* and often dilated at 

 base, ciliate-erose : leaves approximate, borne alternately on 

 right and left of top of rootstock, articulated to rootstock: roots 

 springing from sides and base of rootstock, paleaceous. 



Leaves ascending or suberect, four and one-half to sixteen 

 inches long, two-fifths of an inch to four and two-fifths inches 

 broad, evergreen, not prostrated in winter; in icy or dry weather 

 drooping forward, the segments curving horizontally and becoming 

 connivent over face of blade. 



Petioles shorter to longer than blades, green or, when dried, 

 greenish-stramineous, on face convex or below flattened or 

 slightly hollowed, at back convex, on sides narrowly winged or 

 below angled, or at extreme base subterete, glabrous or bearing 



* D. C. Eaton says "scales peltately attached," but I find a sinus leading from the 

 base to the point of attachment. An overlapping of the sides of this sinus often makes 

 the scales appear peltately attached. 



