360 FERN FAMILY. 



2. Stems annual, not living through the winter, branched, at least the sterile ones, 



E. limbsum. Muddy edges of streams, rather common : stems all alike, 

 2 - 3 high, with many furrows, fruiting in summer, and afterwards sending 

 out a few upright branches ; sheaths with 15-20 dark-colored acute teeth. 



E. arv&ise, COMMON HORSE-TAIL. Moist eandy places, common N. : 

 fertile stems unbranched, with very conspicuous sheaths, 4' -8' high, appearing 

 in earliest spring and soon withering ; sterile stems 8' - 20' high, producing 

 many whorls of rather rigid slender and mostly simple 4-angled branches. 



E. sylVclticum, WOODLAND II. Common N., along the edges of moist 

 woods : fertile stems appearing in early spring, but lasting all summer, both 

 these and the sterile ones producing many whorls of spreading or gracefully 

 decurved compound softish 3 - 5-furrowed branches and branchlets ; sheaths of 

 the main stem loose, 8 - 14-toothed. 



132. FILICES, FERN FAMILY. 



Flowerless plants with creeping or ascending rootstocks, or even 

 erect trunks, bearing distinct leaves (fronds), which are rolled up 

 (circinate) in the bud (except in one group), and bear commonly on 

 the under surface or on the edges the simple fructification, consist- 

 ing of 1 -celled spore-cases (technically called sporangia) variously 

 grouped in dots, lines, or masses, and containing but one kind of 

 minute, 1-celled, powdery, numerous spores. A large family, most 

 abundant in warm and moist regions, consisting of 8 suborders, 6 of 

 which are represented with us. 



[The divisions of a pinnatifid frond are properly called segment*; of a pinnate 

 frond, pinnce ; of a 2-3-4-} /innate frond, pinnules or ultimate segments. The stalk 

 of the frond is a stipe; its continuation through the, frond, the rhachis ; its branches, 

 partial or secondary rhac/iisrs. A rharh/s bordered by the I tafy portion becomes a 

 midrib, which may be primary, secondary, $T.] 



I. POLYPODIACE^E, or TRUE FERNS: characterized by 

 stalked spore-cases, having a vertical, incomplete, many-jointed, 

 elastic ring, which straightens at maturity, breaking open the spore- 

 case transversely, and so discharging the spores. Spore-cases rarely 

 if ever on very narrow thread-like branches ; the fruit-dots often 

 covered by a scale-like involucre (the indusium). 



1. No definite fruit-dots, but the spore-cases in large patches on the ^nder surface 

 of the fertile frond, or entirely covering the under surface: no indusium. 



1. ACROSTICHUM CHRYSODIUM. Fronds simple or pinnately branched, 



with reticulated veins : spore-cases covering the whole under surface of the 

 fropd or of its upper divisions. 



2. PLATYCERIUM. Fronds irregularly forking; veins reticulated: spore-cases 



in large' patches on special portions of the under surface. 



2. Spore-coses on the back of the frond, sometimes near the mart/in, in dots or lines 

 (sori) placed on the veins or at the ends of the veins, but ivithout indusium of 

 any kind. 



3. POLYPODIUM. Fronds simple or pinnate, rarely twice pinnate; veins free 



or reticulated; fruit-dots round or roundish, at the ends of the veins, or at the 

 point where several veins meet (anastomose). Stalk articulated to the root- 

 stock, and leaving a distinct scar when decaved away. 



14. PHEGOPTERIS. Agrees with Polypodium in most respects ; but has the fruit- 

 dots smaller, and commonly on the veins, not at their ends, and the stalk is 

 not articulated to the rhachis. 



4. GYMNOGRAMME CEROPTERTS. Fronds compound, covered beneath 



with white or yellow waxy powder: fruit-dots in long often forking lines 

 on the veins. 



