188 MACOUN AND BURGESS ON 



about as thick as a goose-quill ; stalks erect, slender, dark brown, polished, and dichoto- 

 mously forked, the recurved branches bearing four to sixteen pinnte on their outer side, 

 and forming fronds crescentic or nearly circular in outline ; pinnules numerous, smooth, 

 springing alternately from the rachis by short stalks, (the terminal one of each pinna cu- 

 neate in shape, the lowest two or three triangular, and the intermediate ones oblong), ap- 

 parently one-sided from their lower slightly-curved margin being entire, while the upper 

 is cleft into lobes ; lobes in sterile fronds toothed, but in fertile reflexed and altered to form 

 the indusia. 



Specimens of this fern are occasionally seen with the pinnules much more deeply in- 

 cised than usual, and others with most of them triangular, a combination of these two 

 forms making the var. iriangidare of McCord, in Can. Nat., Vol. I, p. 355. In some plants 

 collected in the Shickshock Mountains, Quebec, at an elevation of 4,000 feet, the primary 

 branches show little tendency to recurvation, making the general outline of the frond tri- 

 angular, while, by a sudden bending inward on themselves of the ends of the branches, 

 the larger pinnre appear to be on the outside of the fronds, and some of them are given 

 the appearance of being branched. A somewhat similar abnormality is seen in specimens 

 from Lakefield, Ont., which have the two branches curved inward instead of outward, 

 apparently making the stipe terminate in a circular primary rachis, from which spring the 

 pinnules. 



In medicine the leaves of A. pedatum have been used for their expectorant properties 

 in coughs, asthma and chronic catarrh, and have also at times been extensively substituted 

 for the true Maidenhair (^4. Capillus-Veneris) employed in France to manufacture a pectoral 

 syrup, known as " Strop de Ca}rillaire" 



In Canada the Maidenhair, though very local in ils distribution outside of Ontario, 

 where it is particularly abundant, occurs from Nova Scotia to British Columbia. New- 

 port, Hants Co., N. S. — Rev. E. H. Ball. Upper liestigouche and Upper St. John, N. B. — 

 Fowler. Archibald's Mill, Upper Musquodoboit, Halifax Co., N. S, ; near Woodstock, 

 N. B. — P.Jack. Common in Quebec, especially in the western part. Quebec, Que. — Hon. 

 Wm. Sheppard. St. Joachim and Isle St. Paul, Montreal, Que. — Provancher. Eiver Rouge, 

 Que. — W. S. M. Z)' Urban. Very common throughout Ontario. — Lawson, Macoun, Burgess, 

 etc. On the plateau of Mt. Albert, near a small lake, Shickshock Mountains, Gaspe, Que. ; 

 Vancouver Island, Yale and other places in British Columbia. — Macoun. Mt. Finlayson, 

 near Victoria, B. O, a deeply laciniate form growing with the common one. — J. Fletcher. 

 Queen Charlotte Islands, B. C, specimens over two feet high. — G. 31. Dawson. 



Genus VIII.— LOMARIA, Willd., Deer-Feiix. 



1. — L. spigant, Desv., (Oregon Deer-Fern, Roman-Fern, Hard-Fern, Spiked-Fern), Hook, 

 and Baker, Syn. Fil., 178. Macoun's Cat., No. 2293. Eaton, Ferns of N. A, I, 249. 

 Underwood, Our Nat. Ferns, etc., 95. 



L. borealis, Link. 



Osmunda spicant, L. 



Onoclea spicant, Hoff. 



Blechnum spicant, Smith. 



B. boreale, Swarfz^ Pursh, II, G69. 



