46 ' OSMUNDACEAE (FLOWERING FERN FAMILY) 



simply linear, or (in foreign species) fan-shaped or dichotomously many-cleft 

 fronds (whence the name, from o-xifw, to split). 



1. S. pusilla Pursh. Sterile fronds linear, very slender, flattened and 

 tortuous; the fertile ones equally slender (O.o mm. wide), but taller (5-12 cm.) 

 and bearing at the top the fertile appendage consisting of about 5 pairs of 

 crowded pinnae (each 2-3 mm. long). — Low grounds, pine barrens of N. J. ; 

 N. S. ; very local. Sept. (Nfd.) 



2. LYG6dIUM Sw. Climbing Fern 



Fronds twining or climbing, bearing stalked and variously lobed (or com- 

 p(Hind) divisions in pairs, with mostly free veins; the fructification on separate 

 contracted divisions or spike-like lobes, one side of which is covered with a 

 double row of imbricated hooded scale-like indusia, fixed by a broad base to 

 short oblique veinlets. Sporangia much as in Schizaea^ but oblique, fixed 

 to the veinlet by the inner side next the base, one or rarely two covered by each 

 indusium. (Name from Xvywdr]$, flexible.) 



1. L. palmatum (Bernh.) Sw. Very smooth ; stalk-like fronds slender, 

 flexile and twining (3-10 dm. long), from slender running rootstocks; the short 

 alternate branches or petioles 2-forked ; each fork bearing a round-heart- 

 shaped palmately -l-T-lobed frondlet ; fertile frondlets above, contracted and 

 several times forked, forming a terminal panicle. — Low moist thickets and open 

 woods, s. N. H. to Fla., Tenn., and Ky. ; local. Sept. 



OSMUNDACEAE (Flowerixg Fern Family) 



Leaf >j plants (ours herbaceous), vjith creeping rhizomes. Sporangia naked^ 

 globose, mostly pediceled, reticulated, with no ring orvRthmere traces of one near 

 the apex, opening into two valves by a longitudinal slit. Stipes winged at the 

 base. 



1. OSMUNDA [Tourn.] L. Flowering Fern 



Fertile fronds or fertile portions of the frond destitute of chlorophyll, very 

 much contracted, and bearing on the margins of the narrow rhachis-like 

 divisions short-pediceled and naked sporangia ; these globular, thin and reticu- 

 lated, large, opening by a longitudinal cleft into two valves, and bearing 

 near the apex a small patch of thickened oblong cells, the rudiment of a trans- 

 verse ring. — Fronds tall and upright, growing in large crowns from thickened 

 rootstocks, once or twice pinnate ; veins forking and free. Spores green. 

 {Oamunder, a Saxon name of the Celtic divinity, Thor.) 



* Sterile fnjnds truly bipinnate. 



1. 0. regalis L. (Flowering Fern.) Very smooth, paie green (0.3-1.0 m. 

 high) ; sterile pinnules 13-25, varying from oblong-oval to lance-oblong, finely 

 serrulate, especially toward the apex, otherwise entire, or crenately lobed 

 toward the rounded, oblicjue and truncate, or even cordate and semi-auriculate 

 base, sessile or short-stalked (2-5 cm. long) ; the fertile racemose-panicled at 

 the summit of the frond. (0. spertahilis Willd.) — Swamps and wet woods, 

 common. The cordate pinnules sometimes found here are commoner in Europe. 

 May, June. (Eu.) Forma op.hiculXta Clute has narrow fronds and few 

 (3-7) roundish crowded pinnules on each pinna. — Ilartland, Vt. (Buggies). 



* * Sterile fronds once pinnate ; pinnae deeply pinnatifld ; the lobes entire. 



2. 0. Claytoniana L. Clothed with loose wool when young, soon smooth ; 

 fertile fronds taller than the sterile (0-12 dm. high) ; pinnae oblong-lanceolate, 

 with oblong obtuse divisions ; some (2~o pairs) of the middle pinnae fertilp, these 

 entirely pinnate ; sporangia greenish, turning brown. — Low grounds, common. 

 May. — Fruiting as it unfolds. (Himalayas.) Var. ot/BiA Gro|U4fi^ peculiar 



