CROUP VI FERTILE AND STERILE FRONDS LEAF - LIKE 

 AND USUALLY SIMILAR; FRUITS-DOTS ROUND 



Boott's Shield Fern is found in moist woods and 

 near ponds. It is distinguished by its long, narrow 

 fronds and minutely glandular indusium. 



42. CRESTED SHIELD FERN 



Aspidium cristatum (Dryopteris cristata) 



Newfoundland to Kentucky, in swamps. One to more than 

 three feet high, with stalks which are chaffy, especially below, 

 and which have light-brown scales, stalks of sterile fronds much 

 shorter than those of fertile fronds. 



Fronds. Linear-oblong or lance-shaped, nearly twice-pinnate, 

 fertile ones taller and longer stalked than the sterile ; pinna (of the 

 fertile frond, turning their faces toward the apex of the frond) 

 rather short, lance-shaped or triangular-oblong, deeply impressed 

 with veins, cut deeply into oblong, obtuse, finely toothed divisions ; 

 fruit-dots large, round, half-way between midvein and margin; 

 indusium large, flat. 



In wet woods, growing either from the ground or 

 from the trunks of fallen trees, and also in open 

 meadows, we notice the tall, slender, dark-green, 

 somewhat lustrous fronds of the Crested Shield 

 Fern, usually distinguished easily from its kinsmen 

 by the noticeably upward-turning pinnae of the fer- 

 tile fronds, and by the deep impression made by the 

 veins on their upper surfaces. 



The sterile fronds are much shorter than the fer- 

 tile ones. They are evergreen, lasting through the 

 winter after the fertile fronds have perished. 



Near the Crested Shield Fern we find often many 

 of its kinsmen, broad, feathery fronds of the Spinu- 



lose Wood Fern, more slender ones of Boott's Shield 



170 



