PRnilP V fE'^'^"-^ ^° STERItL FRONDS lEAF-LIKE AND SIMILAR , 

 URUUr V SPORANGIA IN LINEAR OR OBLONG FRUIT - DOTS 



The known stations of this curious little plant are 

 usually in the immediate neighborhood of the Walk- 

 ing Leaf and the Ebony Spleenwort, of which ferns 

 it is supposed to be a hybrid. The long, narrow 

 apex occasionally forming a new plant, and the ir- 

 regular fruit-dots remind one of the Walking Leaf, 

 while the lustrous black stalk, the free veins, and the 

 pinnate portions of the fronds suggest the Ebony 

 Spleenwort. 



Scott's Spleenwort matures in August. It is rare 

 and local, except in Alabama. The fact, however, 

 that it has been discovered in widely distant locali- 

 ties east of the Mississippi should lend excitement 

 to fern expeditions in any of our limestone neigh- 

 borhoods where we see its chosen associates, the 

 Walking Leaf and the Ebony Spleenwort. To find 

 a new station for this interesting little fern, even if 

 it consisted of one or two plants only, as is said to 

 have been the case at Canaan, Conn., would well re- 

 pay the fatigue of the longest tramp. 



32. PINNATIFID SPLEENWORT 



Asphnium pinnatifidum 



New Jersey and Pennsylvania to Illinois, and southward to 

 Alabama and Arkansas, on rocks. Four to fourteen inches long, 

 with polished stalks, blackish below, green above, when young 

 somewhat chaffy below. 



Fronds. — Broadly lance-shaped, tapering to a long, slender 

 point, pinnatifid or pinnate below ; pinna rounded or the lowest 

 tapering to a point , fruit-dots straight or somewhat curved ; in- 

 dusium straight or curved. 



143 



