SELECTED WESTERN FLORA 



MANITOBA, SASKATCHEWAN, AND ALBERTA 



DIVISION I. PTERIDOPHYTA. 



(Vascular Cryptograms.) 



Plants without true flowers, and reproducing with an alternation 

 of generations. The sexual generation, the prothallus, is incon- 

 spicuous, while the asexual consists of conspicuous fronds, some of 

 which bear the reproductive bodies or spores. 



I. POLYPODlACE.® (Febn Family). 



Leaf-like herbaceous fronds springing from a creeping rootstock; 

 spores enclosed in sporangia (spore-eases) collected in groups called 

 sori or fruit dots, each of which is 

 covered by aSoale called an indusium ; 

 sori arranged in lines or clusters on the 

 back or margin of the frond division. 



1. ASPIDIUM. Wood FeSn. 



Fronds pinnate; fruit dots round, 

 borne on the back of the fertile 

 fronds which scarcely differ from 

 the sterile; stipes nx)t jointed. 



1. A. cristatum, (L.) Sw. ^'°- L — Prothallus of a Fern. 



Fronds lanceolate to oblong, the pinnse 

 oblong to triangular, deeply out into 6 to 10 pairs q( sharply serrate segments ; 

 fruit dots about half way between the margin and the midveinj tlie covering 

 almost rounded and smooth ; stipe and rootstock covered with light brown 

 scales. Moist cold woods, Man. and westward. 

 B 1 



