124 OUR NATIVE FERNS AND THEIR AILIES. 



and bearing at top the fertile appendage consisting of about hvc 

 pairs of crowded pinnae, forming a distichous spike. New Jer- 

 sey; Grand Lake, Nova Scotia {iMtss Knight); Newfoundland 

 {De la Pylaie). 



XXX. OSMUNDA L. Flowering-pern. 

 Fertile fronds or fertile portions very much contracted, 

 bearing short-pedicelled, naked sporangia on the margin of the 

 rachis-like divisions. Sporangia large, globular, opening by a 

 longitudinal cleft into two halves, bearing near the apex a few 

 parallel striae, the rudiment of a transverse ring. Spores green. 

 Named for Ostminder, a Saxon name for the divinity Thor. A 

 genus containing six species mostly north temperate. 

 * Fronds bipinnate, fertile at tJie apex. 



1. O. regalis L. Stipes tufted, i" — i|^Mong. erect, naked ; 

 fronds 2°— 4° long, T or more broad ; sterile pinnae 6' — 12' long, 

 2 — 4' broad ; pinnules oblong-ovate to lance-oblong, sessile or 

 slightly stalked ; the fertile pinnules cylindrical, panicled ; tex- 

 ture subcoriaceous ; rachis and both sides naked. {O. specta- 

 bilis Willd., O. glaucescens Link.) Canada to Florida and Mis- 

 sissippi. 



** Sterile fronds bipznnatifid. 



2. O. Claytoniana L. Stipes tufted, 1° or more long, 

 clothed with loose woolly tomentum when young, naked when 

 mature; fronds 1° — 2" long, 8' — iz broad; pinnae oblong-lan- 

 ceolate with oblong, obtuse divisions; 2 — 5 pairs of central 

 pinnae fertile fertile pinnules dense, cylindrical ; texture her- 

 baceous. {O. interrupta Michx.) Canada to Kentucky, and 

 northward. 



3. O. cinnamomea L. (CiNNAMON-FERN.) Stipes dense- 

 ly tufted, 1° or more long, the sterile and fertile fronds dis- 

 tinct, clothed when young with ferruginous tomentum ; sterile 

 fronds smooth when mature, the pinnae bearing a tuft of tomen- 

 tum at the base beneath, lanceolate, cut into broadly oblong, 

 obtuse divisions ; fertile fronds contracted, bipinnate, with cin- 

 namon-colored sporangia. In var. frondosa Gray, some of the 

 fronds are sterile below, and sparsely fertile at the summit. 

 (O. Claytoniana Conrad.) New England and Wisconsin to 

 Florida. 



