CANADIAN FILICTNEiE. 209 



of shaded cliffs and on mossy rooks, especially near cascades. Rootstock stout, ascending 

 or erect, very chaffy ; stalks usually very short, green or greenish straw-color, clustered, 

 very chaffy, the chaffiness extending along the rachis and midribs of the fronds ; fronds 

 mixed with old and shrivelled ones, rigid, erect, lanceolate, 3 to 12 inches long by | to 2J 

 inches wide, glandular on both surfaces but especially so beneath, bipinnate ; pinnae 

 linear-oblong and pinnately parted ; pinnules oblong, obtuse, toothed or nearly entire, 

 almost hidden beneath by the overlapping iudusia, which are toothed and glandular round 

 the margin. 



This species is subject to slight variations in the shape of its general outline as well 

 as of its pinnae and in the degree of chaffiness, slenderer and less scaly forms constituting 

 var. ft. Hooker. 



A few economic properties are attributed to it, being used in Northern Asia as an 

 anti-scorbutic and in Mongolia as a substitute for tea. 



The range of the Fragrant Wood-Fern is from Nova Scotia to the Rocky Mountains, 

 and from the boundary between us and the United States to the Arctic Circle. Hartley 

 Water-Fall, Pirate Harbour, Strait of Canso, N. S.— Rev. E. H. Ball. Clefts of rocks at the 

 Railway Tunnel at Restigouche, N. B. — Fowler. Dalhousie, N. B. — J. Fletcher. Saguenay 

 River, Que. — D. A. Watt. Hemmingford, Que. — Goode. Perpendicular rocks at the Falls 

 of Ste. Anne des Monts River and aloug the Telegraph Road, G-aspe, Que. ; Pie Island, 

 and along cliffs on the shore of Thunder Bay above that island, McKay's Mountain, 

 Thunder Cape, and Red Rock Station, C. P. Ry., north shore of Lake Superior, Ont. ; very 

 abundant on trap cliffs on the upper part of Nipigon River and all round Lake Nipigon, 

 being the common fern in that region, often with fronds over a foot long ; Dawson Road, 

 Man. ; Peace River Pass in the Pocky Mountains, above Hudson's Hope in the Canyon, 

 Lat. 56° 12'. — Macoun. C. P. Ry. north of Lake Superior, a form approaching var. ft. Hooker. 

 — /. Fletcher. East coast of Hudson Bay, Cape Chudleigh and Cape Prince of Wales, 

 Hudson Strait, 1884.— R. Bell. Great Bear Lake, N. W. Ter.— Hooker. The Saskatchewan 

 to the Arctic Sea and islands. — Richardson and Sir E. Parry. 



§ § Indusia round and entire, fixed by the depressed centre. Pinnae and pin- 

 nules usually auricled on the upper side at the base. 



* Fronds simply pinnate. 



f Stalks short. 



11.— A. Lonchitis, Swarf:, (Holly-Fern), Syn. Fil., 43. Cray, Man., 666. Hook, and 

 Baker, Syn. Fil., 250. Macoun's Cat., No. 2305. Eaton, Ferns of N. A., I, 161. Under- 

 wood, Our Nat. Ferns, etc., 103. 



Polypodinm Lonchitis, L. 



Polystichum Lonchitis, Roth, Lawson, Can. Nat., I, 285. Watt, Can. Nat.,IV, 363. 



The Holly-Fern is a handsome evergreen species, growing in tufts in shaded rocky 

 places, usually on the debris of calcareous rocks, and attaining a height of 5 or 6 inches to 

 over 2 feet. Rootstock stout, ascending, very chaffy, and covered with old stalk-bases ; 

 stalks chaffy, 1 to 3 inches long ; fronds dark-green, rigid, leathery, linear-lanceolate, 4 or 

 5 inches to 2 feet long by 1 to 2J inches wide, acute or acuminate, narrowed at the base, 



Sec. IV., 1884. 27. 



