GROUP III 



FERTILE FRONDS UNIFORMLY SOMEWHAT LEAF-LIKE, 

 YET DIFFERING NOTICEABLY FROM STERILE FRONDS 



17. CHRISTMAS FERN 



Aspidium acrosiichoides (Dryopteris acrostichoides) 



New Brunswick to Florida, in rocky woods. One to two and a 

 half feet high, with very chaffy stalks. 



Fronds. — Lance-shaped, once-pinnate, fertile fronds contracted 

 toward the summit ; pinnce narrowly lance-shaped, half halberd- 

 shaped at the slightly stalked base, bristly-toothed, the upper ones 

 on the fertile fronds contracted and smaller; fruit-dots round, 

 close, confluent with age, nearly covering the under surface of the 

 fertile pinnae ; indusium orbicular, fixed by the depressed centre. 



Of our evergreen ferns this is the best fitted to 

 serve as a decoration in winter. No other fern has 



such deep-green, highly pol- 

 ished fronds. They need 

 only a mixture of red ber- 

 ries to become a close rival 

 to the holly at Christmas- 

 time. 



Wrapped in a garment 

 of brown scales, the young 

 fronds of the Christmas 

 Fern are sent into the world 

 early in the spring. When we go to the woods in 

 April to look for arbutus, or to listen to the first 

 songs of the robin and the bluebird, we notice that 

 last year's fronds are still fresh and green. Low 

 down among them, curled up like tawny caterpillars, 

 are the young fronds. The arbutus will have made 

 way for pink and blue and white hepaticas, for starry 

 bloodroot, and for tremulous anemones ; thrushes 

 and orioles will have joined the robins and the blue- 

 birds before these new-comers present much of an 



96 



Portion of fertile frond 



