CHAPTER XVI 

 SPINULOSE FERN 



Dryopteris spinulosa intermedia. 



Rootstock creeping, stout, chaffy: leaves clustered slightly 

 back of or partly encircling terminal leaf-buds: roots springing 

 from rootstock, often two or three to a petiole. 



Leaves ascending or suberect, five inches to three feet long, 

 three inches to one foot broad, imperfectly evergreen. 



Petioles two inches to one foot long, commonly shorter than 

 blades, chaffy: at base dark fuscous, turgid; above more slen- 

 der, green or at back slightly brownish or when dried greenish- 

 straw-colored, deeply channelled on face, slightly furrowed on 

 sides: scales tawny with darker centres or darker at points of 

 attachment only, ovate, acuminate, entire, when removed leaving 

 minute rigid points; the lower numerous, rather large; the 

 upper fewer, smaller: fibrovascular bundles five to seven in base, 

 three near apex, of petiole, the two anterior largest; somewhat 

 roundish-strap-shaped, on broader sides sometimes slightly hol- 

 lowed or furrowed. 



Blades oblong-ovate, bi-tri -pinnate: apices pinnatifid, acumi- 

 nate: pinnae spreading, diverging from rachis at angle of about 

 sixty to ninety degrees, crowded or approximate or more distant, 

 alternate or opposite, the lower short-stalked, the upper subsessile 



