Fronds. — Climbing and twining, one 

 to three feet long, divided into lobed, 

 rounded, heart - shaped, short - stalked 

 segments ; fruit - clusters, growing at 

 the summit of the frond, ripening in 

 September. 



The Climbing Fern is still found 

 occasionally in moist thickets and 

 open woods from Massachusetts southward, 

 but at one time it was picked so reck- 

 lessly for decorative purposes that it was almost 

 exterminated. 



In 1869 the legislature of Connecticut passed for 

 its protection a special law which was embodied in 

 the revision of the statutes of 1875, "perhaps the 



75 



