98 CHEILANTHES VESTITA.—HAIRY LIP-FERN. 
and delicate, graceful habit. This one has little of such charac- 
teristics to commend it. Though the fronds are cut and numer- 
ously divided, there is a stiffness and heaviness about the plant 
unusual in so many of its ferny neighbors, This is increased by 
the heavy, coarse hair covering the fronds, and from which its spe- 
cific name vest?ta has been derived. There is also an additional 
heaviness in the appearance from the great number of rather 
large spores, which often almost cover the back of the fertile 
frond. Again, the curving back of the margin of the lobes 
of the frond, from the manner of which the generic name is 
derived, makes the fronds look unusually thick for a graceful 
fern, Still it is a species which is very much admired by fern- 
lovers; and fern-culturists make very pretty specimens of it, 
when the best conditions for its growth are understood. 
This turning back of the edges of the leaves or fronds is one 
of the peculiarities of the genus. In the time of Linnzus it 
would have been regarded as a Pteris, which also has the edges 
of the fronds recurved; and indeed the genus founded by Swartz 
was established on a species from the Cape of Good Hope, pre- 
viously known as a f¥erts. The date of this establishment is 
fixed by the pteridologists as 1806; but the species here illus- 
trated had been discovered by Michaux three years before, and 
was referred by him to Wephrodium, a genus established by 
Richard, a French botanist, a few years before, and it is described 
in his works as Mephrodium fanosum. ‘When found to be more 
properly belonging to the new genus Cheilanthes, it was removed 
to that genus, and named Chedlanthes vestita, Some botanists 
have thought that as Michaux first described it, his specific 
name might at least have been preserved when it was taken to 
Cheilanthes, and they call it C davosa; but Professor Eaton, in 
his “Ferns of North America,” properly shows that though it is 
sometimes desirable to carry on these names where changes are 
made, it is not obligatory on the botanist to do so, and therefore 
we must abide by Swartz’s name, Cheidanthes vestila, though 
Michaux and not he was the original describer of the plant; and 
