278 THE CURLY GRASS AND THE CLIMBING FERN. 



plant of the fresh water swamps and bogs. When full 

 grown it seldom attains a height of six inches and the 

 slender fronds present so little surface for the eye to 

 rest upon that it is one of the most difficult of our ferns 

 to distinguish from its surroundings. It is only in mid- 

 summer or later, when the spikes show a glint of brown, 

 or in a mild winter when the absence of vegetation 

 tnders the sterile fronds conspicuous, that one can 

 search for the plant with much hope of finding it. Even 

 then one must often get down on hands and knees to 

 see it. 



The sterile fronds are an inch or more long and scarcely 

 wider than pencil marks. They are twisted or half coiled 

 in loose open spirals and spread about as if trying to lay 

 hold upon the vegetation near. In July the fertile 

 fronds push up on thread-like stems. They are quite as 

 inconspicuous and have no greater likeness, to fern leaves 

 than have the sterile ones. At the top of the stipe are 

 four or more pairs of finger-like pinnae enclosing the 

 sporangia. The lowest pair are longest and all are set 

 closely together in a little brown spike that resembles 

 a tiny fist. The fruiting fronds remain on the plant 

 during the winter and occasionally until the middle of 

 the following year. Possibly they do not release their 

 spores until spring. 



Some time after the curly grass was discovered in New 

 Jersey, a few plants were found in Nova Scotia by Mrs. 

 E. G. Britton and still later, in 1896, specimens were col- 

 lected in Newfoundland by Rev. Arthur Waghorne. 

 This is not the first record for Newfoundland, however. 

 In the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, are specimens col- 

 lected long ago by De la Pylaie and labelled Newfound- 

 land, but until the fern was rediscovered there, they were 



