22 



POLYPODIACEAE 



1. B. serrulatum L. C. Rich. Eootstock stout, widely 

 creeping and often partly erect: leaves erect, 2 m. tall 

 or less, rigid in sunny places, pliable in shade: 

 petioles scaly near the 

 base ; blades broadly linear 

 to elliptic-lanceolate in 

 outline, mostly longer than 

 the petioles; leaflets nu- 

 merous, leathery, the blades 

 linear, linear-lanceolate, or 

 elliptic-lanceolate, those of 

 the spore-bearing leaves 

 the smaller, often shiny, 

 with a pale irregularly ser- 

 rulate margin, sessile : 

 veins very numerous, close 

 together, simple or forking 

 near the midrib or beyond 

 the indusium, curving into 

 the teeth at the margin; 

 indusia about 3 mm., wide, 

 red. Everglades" and 

 prairies and adjacent ham- 

 mocks. Figure 12, re- 

 duced. 



The fresh-water swamp 

 or marsh is the home of 

 this fern. Consequently the 

 edges of Royal Palm Ham- 

 mock are ideal places for its growth, low places within 

 the hammock are also quite favorable to a good develop- 

 ment of it. However, it occurs also in the low pine- 

 land hammocks as well as in the Everglade hammocks. 

 It likes shade, and thriving best out of the direct sun- 

 light, this fern grows plentifully in open places as well, 

 but there it is always more or less stunted, the plants 

 being strictly erect and rigid. Within our range the 

 plant is terrestrial; wherever it occurs near salt-water 

 or brackish-water it becomes more or less epiphytic. 



