14 POLYPODIACEAE 



small ferns of the hammocks in southern Florida. In 

 dry weather the leaves shrivel, shrink, and curl up, but 

 after a rain storm or a rainy period they are restored to 

 a pefectly fresh state, whence the common name. This 

 fern grows in every hammock on the adjacent Everglade 

 Keys and in many places on the Florida Keys. It 

 occurs in abundance on the trunks and the limbs of the 

 live-oak and on other rough-barked trees and also on 

 dead stumps and prostrate rotting logs. On Eoyal Palm 

 Hammock it is most plentiful on the limbs of the large 

 live-oaks. It is more rare on the ground and on rocks. 

 This plant is common in continental and insular tropical 

 America, and extends northward in the eastern United 

 States to Iowa and Pennsylvania. It was discovered in 

 Florida in the eighteenth century. Sometimes it is known 

 as scaly-polypody, tree-polypody, and gray-polypody. 



3. PHLEBODIUM J. Smith 



Bather coarse epiphytic plants. Leaves borne singly 

 and spreading or drooping from a stout creeping root- 

 stock to which the long petioles are jointed: blades 

 broad, deeply pinnatifid, the segments thickish, entire 

 or toothed. Veins regularly anastomosing, forming 

 large areolae in which are included two or more free 

 veinlets. Sori orbicular, borne on the back of the leaf- 

 blade, a single one usually terminating a pair of veinlets. 

 Indusia wanting. About six species widely distributed 

 in the tropics. 



1. P. aureurn (L.) J. Smith. Rootstock stout, creeping, 

 serpent-like, copiously chaffy with red or red-brown 

 scales: leaves scattered along the rootstock, 3-11 dm. 

 long, bright-green or yellowish-green, spreading; peti- 

 oles brown, smooth; blades ovate to elliptic-ovate in 



