THE CURLY GRASS AND THE CLIMBING FERN. 281 



branches, each of which is forked with a pair of frondlets 

 at the end. These are about semi- 

 circular in outline, and cut halfway or 

 more toward the base into from five to 

 seven ovate or oblong leaflets. The 

 basal ones are eared on the lower side 

 making each frondlet somewhat heart- 

 shaped at base. In fertile fronds, the 

 frondlets toward the apex are suddenly 

 reduced to a panicle of many short nar- 

 row segments, but with a general re- 

 semblance in their form to the sterile A FRUITING PINN A. 

 ones. On the underside of these segments, there is a 

 double row of alternating, scale-like indusia each covering 

 an egg-shaped sporecase. After the spores are ripe, the 

 fertile portion dies, but the sterile frondlets remain 

 green through the winter and until the young crosiers 

 begin to develop in spring. 



In autumn the fronds are offered for sale for decorative 

 purposes in many of our southern and eastern cities, and 

 the great demand for it has nearly caused its extinction in 

 some sections. In Connecticut the legislature once 

 passed a law imposing a penalty upon any person who 

 should uproot or carry away from the land of another, 

 specimens of this fern. This is probably the only fern 

 thus distinguished. 



This species is also called creeping fern, snake-tongue 

 fern, Hartford fern and Windsor fern, the last two 

 names referring to localities where it was once common. 

 It ranges from Massachusetts to Florida, mostly near the 

 coast, and has also been found in Kentucky and Ten- 

 nessee, but not in the intervening territory. It grows in 

 low thickets and on the banks of streams, twining over 



