HOW TO KNOW FERNS 



251 



trees but as a matter of fact it grows in both deep and shady wood- 

 lands and also in rather open dry woods and on hillsides. The 

 fronds may attain a height of from ten to eighteen inches and 

 almost all of them bear ntimerous small fruit 

 dots on the lower side. 



The Long Beech Fern is not so broad as the 

 above in proportion and is found on wet rocks 

 along woodland brooks. It is often eighteen 

 inches high. 



The Oak Fern looks like a pigmy bracken for 

 its lower pinnae are nearly three times divided. 

 It sometimes attains the height of eighteen 

 inches but it is usually less than a foot in 

 height and its color is a delicate yellow-green. 

 It grows in rich, moist, rocky woods. 



The Chain Ferns. Woodwardia 



These are large, rather coarse ferns that grow in swamps and 

 wet woods. They are called Chain Ferns because of the chain- 

 like appearance of their oblong rectangular fruit dots. There are 

 two species, the Narrow-leaved Chain Fern 

 is sometimes mistaken for the Sensitive Fern 

 which it resembles and its fruiting fronds 

 have narrow pinnae, but the peculiar chain- 

 like fruit dots on the lower side at once 

 distinguish the species. 



The Virginian Chain Fern has fronds from 

 two to four feet high and is as big and hand- 

 some as the O^mundas with whom it is often 

 associated. Its sterile and fertile fronds are 

 similar. 



n* Vliiiaian Ch*in K«ra lluu Tonfu* 



The Hart's Tongue. Scolopendrium 

 This can not be called a beautiful fern 

 and its chief attraction is that it is very rare 

 and only found here and there on corniferous limestone in North 

 America and Asia. Its fertile and sterile fronds are similar 

 and are long and leaf-like and may reach from seven to eighteen 

 inches in length. 



