THE OSMUNDAS. 



from some such situation as this that 

 the wise fern cultivator selects his 

 plants for the garden, for the labour of 

 removing the stones from about the 

 prize is much less than is required to 

 dig it up when growing in the soil. It 

 is as firmly anchored as any of its rel- 

 atives and does not come up whole 

 without a struggle. 



Both kinds of fronds begin to grow 

 at about the same time. Although 

 they are so nearly like those of the 

 cinnamon fern, the eye begins to note 

 slight differences even before the frond 

 has unrolled as far as the blade, for 

 the stipes are greener, slenderer and 

 less downy. The sterile fronds grow 

 from a circle inside the fertile ones, 

 but as in the cinnamon fern they are 

 on the outside at maturity. The fer- 

 tile fronds are usually taller than the 

 sterile and remain green all summer. 

 Both kinds are oblong-lanceolate in 

 outline with about twenty pairs of pin- 

 natifid round-lobed pinnae. The spore- 

 bearing organs are produced near the 

 middle of the frond and consist of from 

 two to seven pairs of transformed 

 pinnae that look as if they might have 

 been bodily transferred from the spike 

 of the cinnamon fern. They look so 

 out of place in the middle of the green 

 blade that the uninitiated often take 

 them to be dwarfed or blasted pinnae INTERRUPTED FERN. 



Osmunda Claytoniana. 

 Fertile frond. 



