Botrychium. OPHIOGLOSSACE^. 332 



havo 1icen colloctnl in Asia. Piorossnr Browcr notes tliat tlic stems often throw ont small 

 blanches from the joints the second year. 



4. E. hiemale, Linn. Stems 1 to 4 feet higli, green, rougli, 8- 34 -furrowed ; 

 ridges with two indistinct lines of tubercles : sheaths rather long, cylindrical, ap- 

 pressed, marked with one or two black girdles ; the ridges of the sheaths obscurely 

 4-carinate ; teeth membranaceous, fuscous, soon deciduous. — Al. Braun, 1. c. 89 ; 

 Milde, 1. c. 511, t. 29, 30. 



Attrihuteil to San Francisco in Milde's monograpli. Common in Britisli America and the 

 Atlantic States, and widely distributed in many varieties throufjhont Kurojie and Asia. Not 

 easily distinguished from small forms of the last. Under the microscope tiie section of the stem 

 shows rounder vallecular hollows, and some other slight differences. 



5. E. laevigatum, Al. Braun, 1, c. 87. Stems 1 to 5 feet high, seldom thicker 

 than a goose-quill, pale-green, 14- 30-furroAved ; the ridges almost smooth : sheaths 

 long, sensibly enlarged upwards, marked witli a black girdle at the base of the 

 mostly deciduous fuscous white-margined teeth, and rarely at the base of the sheath 

 also; ridges of the sheath with a single central carina, and sometimes with faint and 

 short lateral ones. — Milde, 1. c. 54G, t. 32. 



Silver Mountain, by streams, at about 6,400 feet elevation (Bracer), and collected somewhere in 

 California by Conifer ; Oregon to Ohio and Louisiana. Readily known by the pale smooth stems 

 and anipliatcd sheaths. It bears slender branches more frequently than other species of the group. 



Order CXXI. OPHIOGLOSSACEiE. 



Leafy plants ; the leaves (fronds) simple or branched, often ferndike, erect in 



vernation, developed from underground buds formed from one to three' years in 



advance either Avithin the base of the stalk of the old frond or by the side of it, 



bearing in special spikes or panicles subcoriaceous exannulate bivalvular sporangia 



formed from the main tissue of the fruiting segments of the frond. Prothallus 



under-ground, destitute of chlorophyll, monoecious. 



An order consisting of three genera, the two here described and iTcJminfkostachj/s of the East 

 Indies, and including about twenty species in all. Ophioghamcrce are now separated from Filices 

 because of differences in the prothalline condition, and because the sporangia are formed from the 

 main tissue of the frond, and not fmm tlie surface hairs, or trichomes, as in true ferns. The 

 erect vernation also distinguishes them. Their true position is yet undecided. 



1. BOTRYCHIUM, Swartz. Grape-Fern. Moonwort. 



Fronds with a posterior pinuatifid or compound sterile segment and an anterior 

 panicled fertile segment, the separate sporangia in a double row on the branches 

 of the panicle. Bud enclosed in the base of tlie stalk. Veins free. 



Ten species are now recognized, of which seven are found in North America. 



1. B. simplex, Hitchcock. Plant smooth, fleshy, not over 6 inches high: 

 sterile segment petioled, usually set near the base of the plant, varying from simple 

 and roundish-obovate in small plants to triangular-ovate and deeply lobed, or even 

 fully ternate with incised divisions in the most developed forms ; lobes broadly 

 obovate-cuneate or slightly lunate, the outer margin obscurely crenulatc, sometimes 

 incised; veins flabellately forking; fertile segment once or twice pinnate. — Am. 

 Journ. Sci. vi. 103, t. 8 ; Davenport, Notes on B. simplex, with plate; Eaton, Ferns 

 of N. Amer. i. 121, t. 17 ; Williamson, Fern Etchings, t. GO, A. 



Var. compositum, Milde. A low alpine form with tlie sterile segment an inch 

 long or less, ternate, or composed of three ovate incised segments. 



Foot of Lyell Glacier, at 10,200 feet altitude {John Afm'r), and in other elevated places in the 

 Sierra Nevada (J/('.m Pel/on and Dr. Graij) ; also in Yellowstone Park. Tlie species extends 

 eastward to the Atlantic, and is known from northern Europe. 



