Sheen: 
188 THE LADY FERN AND ITS KIN. 
but except for its fruiting characters, it is more nearly 
like the species in the latter genus and has therefore 
been included in this chapter. it is found in low wood- 
lands in situations similar to those chosen by the silvery 
spleenwort though seldom if ever so abundant as that 
species. 
The fronds grow in tufts from a creeping rootstock 
and sometimes reach a height of four fect, though they 
are usually at least a foot shorter. They are exceedingly 
thin and delicate, very sensitive to frosts and are often 
destroyed by summer storms. The oblong-lanceolate, 
acute blades are simply pinnate with many long, narrow, 
entire or crenulate pinnules which taper outward froma 
rounded, sessile, or shortly stalked, base to the slender 
tips. The fertile fronds are usually the taller and the pin- 
nules much narrower with the whole under surface cov- 
ered by the long, sharply defined sori in two rows along 
the midrib of each pinnule, much as in the silvery 
spleenwort. Normally sterile fronds sometimes have a 
few pinnules that are fertile in which case the spore- 
bearing parts are narrow like the pinnules of the fertile 
frond, showing how close is the relationship between 
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FRUITING PINN&, 
