CHAPTER VI 

 PURPLE CLIFF-BRAKE 



Pellaea atropurpurea. 



Rootstock creeping, short, stout, usually nodose, thickly 

 clothed with soft, lustrous, cinnamon or orange-colored or 

 whitish, hyaline, linear, acuminate, entire scales: leaves clus- 

 tered at apex of rootstock: roots springing from rootstock, some- 

 times paleaceous. 



Leaves two and one-third to twenty inches long; ultimate 

 divisions persistent during winter, falling off in spring,* petioles 

 and rachises persistent. 



Petioles two to six inches long or longer, wiry, purplish- 

 ebeneous to blackish-red, rigid, terete; at base slightly turgid, 

 bearing a few scales similar to scales of rootstock; above usually 

 paleaceous: fibrovascular bundle solitary, U-shaped. 



Blades about two to six inches broad, oblong-lanceolate or 

 ovate, above once, below twice pinnate: pinnae alternate or 

 opposite : ultimate divisions three-tenths of an inch to two inches 

 long, two-fifths of an inch or less broad, alternate or opposite, 

 obtuse or obscurely mucronulate; at base cordate, truncate, or 

 obtuse, sessile to short-stalked ; the sterile oval or ovate ; the fertile 

 linear or linear-oblong or the smaller elliptical; the apical long- 



* H. H. Swift. 



