THE OSMUNDAS. 
from some such situation as this that 
the wise fern cultivator selects his 
plants for the garden, for the labour of 
removing the stones from about the 
prize is much less than is required to 
dig it up when growing in the soil. It 
is as firmly anchored as any of its rel- 
atives and does not come up whole 
without a struggle. 
Bothkinds of fronds begin to grow 
at about the same time. Although 
they are so nearly like those of the 
cinnamon fern, the eye begins to note 
slight differences even before the frond 
has unrolled as far as the blade, for 
the stipes are greener, slenderer and 
less downy. The sterile fronds grow 
from a circle inside the fertile ones, 
but as in the cinnamon fern they are 
on the outside at maturity. The fer- 
tile fronds are usually taller than the 
sterile and remain green all summer. 
Both kinds are oblong-lanceolate in 
outline with about twenty pairs of pin- 
natifid round-lobed pinnae. The spore- 
bearing organs are produced near the 
middle of the frond and consist of from 
two to seven pairs of transformed 
pinnz that look as if they might have 
been bodily transferred from the spike 
of the cinnamon fern. They look so 
out of place in the middle of the green 
blade that the uninitiated often take 
them to be dwarfed or blasted pinnz 
31 
INTERRUPTED FERN. 
Osmunda Claytoniana. 
Fertile frond. 
