Genus i. 



CLIMBING FERN FAMILY. 



Family 4. SCHIZAEACEAE Reichenb. Consp. 39. 1828. 



Climbing Fern Family. 

 Plants with erect, simple, pinnate or dichotomous, or vine-like, twining, elon- 

 gate leaves, with stalked, alternate, paired and mostly palmately lobed or pinnate 

 leafy divisions. Sporanges borne in double rows on narrow specialized lobes or 

 segments, obovoid, pyriform or globose, sessile, provided with a transverse apical 

 ring and opening vertically by a longitudinal slit. 



Genera 4 or more; species about 125, mainly tropical. 



Leaves short, tufted, rigid. 

 Leaves elongate, climbing. 



1. Schizaea. 



2. Lygodium. 



i. SCHIZAEA J. E. Smith, Mem. Acad. Turin 5 : 419. pi. 19. f. 9. 1793. 



Mostly small plants, with erect or recurved slender filiform simple or dichotomously 

 divided or cleft leaves. Sporanges in 2 rows along the close slender segments of small pin- 

 nate terminal spikes and partially protected by the narrowly reflexed indusiiform margin. 

 [Greek, in allusion to the divided or deeply cleft leaf-blades of some species.l 



A genus of about 25 species, of wide geographic dis- 

 tribution, mostly in tropical regions. Type species : 

 Schizaea dichotoma (L.) J. E. Smith. 



i. Schizaea pusilla Pursh. Curly-grass. Fig. 19. 



Schizaea pusilla Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. 657. 1814. 



Rootstock minute, horizontally creeping, the leaves 

 tufted. Sterile leaves linear, very slender, flat- 

 tened and tortuous. Fertile leaves longer, 3'~5' 

 high, the fertile portion terminal, consisting of 

 about S pairs of crowded pinnate divisions, form- 

 ing a distichous spike ; sporanges ovoid or pyriform, 

 sessile in two rows along the single vein of the nar- 

 row incurved linear divisions of the fertile spike, 

 partially concealed by the incurved hairy margins. 



In wet soil, pine barrens of central and eastern New 

 Jersey, the historic region. Also in Newfoundland and 

 Nova Scotia. Rare and local. Aug.-Sept. 



2. LYGODIUM Sw. Schrad. Journ. Bot. 

 1800 2 : 106. 1801. 



Twining vine-like ferns. Leaves elongate, the rachis wiry and flexuous; leafy parts con- 

 sisting of the stalked palmately lobed or pinnate (or compound) secondary pinnae, borne 

 in pairs upon short stalks arising alternately from the rachis. Sporanges borne on contracted 

 divisions of the leaf, as short or elongate spikes, the lower surface bearing a double row of 

 imbricate hood-like indusia fixed by their broad bases and concealing each I (rarely 2) 

 sporanges. [Name Greek, in allusion to the flexible rachis.] 



About 26 species, mostly of tropical distribution. 

 Type species: Lygodium scandens (L.) Sw. 



1. Lygodium palmatum (Bernh.) Sw. Climb- 

 ing-fern. Hartford-fern. Fig. 20. 



Gisopteris palmata Bernh. Schrad. Journ. Bot. 1800- : 



129. 1801. 

 Lygodium palmatum Sw. Syn. Fil. 154. 1806. 



. Rootstock slender, creeping. Stipes slender, flexible 

 and twining; leaves l°-3° long, their short alternate 

 branches 2-forked, each fork bearing a nearly orbic- 

 ular 4-7-lobed pinnule more or less cordate at the 

 base with a narrow sinus; surfaces naked; fertile 

 pinnules contracted, several times forked, forming a 

 terminal panicle ; sporanges solitary, borne on alter- 

 nate veins springing from the flexuous midvein of 

 the segments, each covered by a scale-like indusium. 



In moist thickets and open woods, New Hampshire 

 to Pennsylvania, south to Florida and Tennessee. As- 

 cends to 2100 ft. in eastern Pennsylvania. Summer. 

 Called also Creeping or Windsor-fern. 



