CHEILANTHES AND MAIDENHAIR. 



T first glance the maidenhair fern 

 seems to have very little in common 

 with the various species of Cheilan- 

 thes, but the way in which they all 

 fruit brings them very close together 

 in the opinion of botanists. Both 

 genera belong to the tribe of which 

 the bracken is a prominent member and, like the species 

 in that genus, bear their sori close to the margins of 

 the pinnules. But here the likeness ends, for there are 

 many patterns after which marginal sori may be arranged. 

 In the bracken the fruit is in long lines and covered with 

 linear indusia ; in the maidenhair it is under a re- 

 flexed tooth of the pinnule ; while in Cheilanthes the 

 edges of the pinnules simply curl over the fruit, and 

 scarcely form an indusium at all. 



Cheilanthes Vestita. 



This interesting little species is rather southern in its 

 distribution, beginning to be rare north of Maryland. It 

 once grew in what is now the northern part of New York 

 City and this is generally supposed to be the fern's 

 northern limit, but a station still further north has been 

 known to a few botanists since 1892 when the plant was 

 discovered near New Haven, Connecticut. This is its 

 northeastern limit, so far as known. 



