28 THE OSMUNDAS. 
powerless to do so at all. A single frond will produce 
many millions of spores and although the conditions for 
growth seem just right when they are shed, the com- 
paratively small number of mature ferns indicate very 
plainly that many dangers attend the sporeling. As soon 
as the spores are shed, the fertile spikes wither and 
have usually disappeared by the end of June. 
Under the frosts of autumn the pinnz of the sterile 
fronds twist and curl, and turning brown, soon loosen 
from the rachis. The latter remains erect and bare all 
winter in marked contrast to some of the evergreen 
species in which, although the fronds continue green, the 
rachids early become unable to hold them erect. 
The rootstock of the cinnamon fern is doubtless larger 
than that of any other American species. It is shaggy 
with the persistent bases of the fronds of other yearsand 
creeps along just at the surface of the soil, looking like a 
great shoe-brush half buried in the mud. The strong 
wiry roots are given off onall sidesand many are obliged 
to penetrate the bases of one 
or more stipes before en- 
tering the earth. One end 
of the rootstock is annually 
renewed by fresh crowns of 
fronds and the other as con- 
stantly dies. If no injury 
happens to the crown, there 
seems nothing to prevent a 
plant from living for centur- 
ies. That some are very old, an examination of the root- 
stock will show. A medium sized specimen often ex- 
hibits the persistent bases of more than three hundred 
fronds, to say nothing of those that have decayed and 
disappeared. 
