CHAPTER XIII 



NEW YORK FERN 



Dryopteris noveboracensis. 



Rootstock wide-creeping, forking, brown, slender, bearing a 

 few minute, pale-brown, ovate-deltoid, acuminate scales; leaves 

 scattered along extensions of rootstock, forming caespitose crowns 

 at its growing ends: roots few, springing from rootstock. 



Leaves ascending or suberect, withering in autumn, six to 

 twenty-nine inches long, sporophylls usually longer and narrower 

 than sterile leaves. 



Petioles about one-fifth to one-third as long as leaves, slender, 

 brownish-straw-colored, furrowed on face, bearing a few small, 

 pale-brown, ovate, acuminate scales: fibrovascular bundles two, 

 flattish. 



Blades lanceolate, tapering both ways, two and one-half to 

 seven and one-half inches broad, pinnate: apex pinnatifid, 

 long-acuminate: pinnae about nineteen to thirty pairs, sessile, 

 alternate or opposite; principal pinnae deeply pinnatifid, acu- 

 minate : upper and lower pinnae acute to obtuse, the lower more 

 or less distant and gradually reduced to mostly toothed or simply 

 auriculate lobes: segments oblong or oblique, obtuse to acute, 

 entire or crenately toothed : margins ciliate : rachis and midribs 

 pubescent: surfaces otherwise sparingly pubescent along veins: 



