BORDER SPECIES. 287 
grow in tufts froma small rootstock. They have dark, 
shining stipes and rachids and are three or four times 
pinnate. The blades are triangular ovate and the pinne 
ovate and mostly stalked. The ultimate pinnules are 
very small and covered beneath with a whitish 
waxy powder. This powder or farina is very 
common in other species of this group and ap- 
pears to serve as a protection from too great an \ 
evaporation of moisture, since the species pos- 
sessing it are all inhabitants of dry and sunny 
places. The sporangia are without indusium fv 
and are borne in lines near the margins of the as 
pinnules by which they are commonly half 
enfolded when young. The generic name 
Notholena is derived from two words mean- 
. /f 
ing a spurious cloak. By some this is be- | 
lieved to refer to the rudimentary indusia; ie 
by others to the woolly covering of the 
original species. From the generic name is 
derived the common name of cloak fern, 
occasionally applied to this species. An 
illustration of a fruited pinnule will be found 
in the Key. 
The Killarney Fern. | 
The group to which the Killarney 
fern (7richomanes radicans) belongs, dif- 
fers from our common ferns in their 
manner of fruiting as well as ina few | 
other matters, and botanists have there- "eubya 
fore placed them ina separate order as} KILLARNEY FERN. 
2 Trichomanes radicans. 
the Hymenophyllacee, equal in rank to 
fe 
