CHEILANTHES AND MAIDENHAIR. 
T first glance the maidenhair fern 
seems to have very little in common 
with the various species of Chezlan- 
thes, but the way in which they all 
fruit brings them very close together 
in the opinion of botanists. Both 
genera belong to the tribe of which 
the bracken is a prominent member and, like the species 
in that genus, bear their sori close to the margins of 
the pinnules. But here the likeness ends, for there are 
many patterns after which marginal sori may be arranged. 
In the bracken the fruit is in long lines and covered with 
linear indusia; in the maidenhair it is under a re- 
flexed tooth of the pinnule; while in Chezlanthes the 
edges of the pinnules simply curl over the fruit, and 
scarcely form an indusium at all. 
Chetlanthes Vestita. 
This interesting little species is rather southern in its 
distribution, beginning to be rare north of Maryland. It 
once grew in what is now the northern part of New York 
City and this is generally supposed to be the fern’s 
northern limit, but a station still further north has been 
known to a few botanists since 1892 when the plant was 
discovered near New Haven, Connecticut. This is its 
northeastern limit, so far as known. 
