GROUP VI F RmE AND STERILE FRONDS LEAF-LIKE 

 AND USUALLY SIMILAR ; FRUIT-DOTS ROUND 



47. BRAUN'S HOLLY FERN 



Aspidium atuleatum, var. Braunii (Dryopteris Braunii) 



Canada to Maine, the mountains of Pennsylvania and westward, 

 in deep rocky woods. One to more than two feet long, with 

 chaffy stalks, having brown scales. 



Fronds. Thick, twice-pinnate ; pinnce lanceolate, tapering both 

 ways; pinnules covered with hairs and scales, truncate, nearly 

 rectangular at the base ; fruit-dots roundish, small, mostly near the 

 midveins ; indusium orbicular, entire. 



This fern is said to have been first discovered by 

 Frederick Pursh in 1807 * n Smuggler's Notch, 

 Mount Mansfield, Vt. In the Green Mountains and 

 in the Catskills several stations have been estab- 

 lished. It has been found also in the Adirondacks 

 and in Oswego County, N. Y., and it is now re- 

 ported as common in the rocky woods of north- 

 ern Maine, and by mountain brooks in northern 

 New England. 



Braun's Holly Fern is one of the numerous varie- 

 ties of the Prickly Shield Fern or A. aculeatum (D. 

 aculeatd). 



Though few of our fern-students will have an op- 

 portunity to follow the Prickly Shield Fern through 

 all the forms it assumes in different parts of the 

 world, yet undoubtedly many of them will have the 

 pleasure of seeing in one of its lonely and lovely 

 haunts our own variety, Braun's Holly Fern. 



