rRDIlP VI FERTILE AND STERILE FRONDS LEAF-LIKE 

 UKUUr VI AND USUALLY SIMILAR; FRUIT-DOTS ROUND 



suggested the bristly looking plant which one finds 

 later in the summer. 



This fern reverses the usual order of things, be- 

 ing gray-haired in youth and brovi^n-haired in old 

 age, with the result that in May its effect is a soft, 

 silvery green. But even in August, if you chance 

 upon a vigorous tuft springing from some rocky 

 crevice, despite its lack of delicacy and its bristle 

 of red-brown hairs or chaff, the plant is an attract- 

 ive one. 



Environment has much to do with the charm of 

 ferns. The first plant of this species I ever identi- 

 fied grew on a rocky shelf within a few feet of a 

 stream which flowed swift and cold from the near 

 mountains. Close by, from the forked branches of 

 a crimson-fruited mountain maple, hung the dainty, 

 deserted nest of a vireo. Always the Rusty Wood- 

 sia seems to bring me a message from that abode 

 of solitude and silence. 



SS. BLUNT-LOBED WOODSIA 



Woodsia obtusa 



Canada to Georgia and Alabama and westward, on rocks. 

 Eight to twenty inches high, with stalks not jointed, chaffy when 

 young. 



Fronds. — Broadly lanceolate, nearly twice-pinnate ; pinnce rather 

 remote, triangular-ovate or oblong, pinnately parted into obtuse, 

 oblong, toothed segments ; veins forked ; fruit-dots on or near 

 the minutely toothed lobes ; indusium conspicuous, splitting into 

 several jagged lobes. 



The Blunt-lobed Woodsia is not rare on rocks and 

 stony hillsides in Maine and Northern New York. 



