OSMUND A. 



35 



When growing in a favourable situation and allowed ample room, it forms 

 a crown of fronds several feet in diameter. The outer fronds, which are 

 generally barren, are borne on tufted, loosely-woolly stalks, which are 1ft. or 

 more in length and clothed with loose, woolly material when young, though 

 naked when mature ; they rise nearly erect on their stalks, but, instead of 

 retaining" their upright position, like those of 0. cinnamomea^ they gradually 

 bend away from the centre and curve outwards in all directions (Fig. 10), thus 

 forming a most elegant, vase-shaped plant of large dimensions. The fronds 

 are usually 1ft. to 2ft. long. Sin. 

 to 12in. broad, and furnished with 

 barren spear-shaped leaflets 4in. to 

 6in. long, lin. or more in breadth, 

 and cut down nearly to the rachis 

 into close, oblong, entire lobes, of 

 a soft, papery texture and pale 

 green colour. The fertile fronds, 

 which are usually taller, stand close 

 together, nearly upright, in the 

 centre of the crown, and present a 

 most peculiar appearance, not shared 

 by any other known species : in 

 this case the fertile fronds do not 

 bear their fructification at the ex- 

 tremity, as is the case with 0. 

 regalis, nor are they ever of totally 

 distinct form. The fertile leaflets 



are situated somewhere near the centre of the frond, most frequently a little 

 above the middle. Above these fertile leaflets the barren ones again appear 

 (see Fig. 11, reduced from Col. Beddome's "Ferns of British India," by the kind 

 permission of the author), and this upper part of the frond, in which the leaflets 

 are much more closely set, is more or less curved outward, like the entirely 

 barren fronds. When the fronds first rise from the thick, massive rootstock, 

 of a woody nature, from which they are produced, both barren and fertile ones 

 are alike covered with a light brown coating of entangled, webby fibres, which, 

 however, are shed during the early summer, when both kinds of fronds, with 



D 2 



Fig, 10. Osmunda Claytoniana 

 (much reduced). 



