OSMUND A CEyE. 77 



and bearing at top the fertile appendage consisting of about five 

 pairs of crowded pinnae, forming a distichous spike. New Jer- 

 sey ; Grand Lake, Nova Scotia {E. G. Knight) ; Newfoundland 

 (De la PyVaie, Waghorne). 



Family 4. OSMUNDACEi^ R. Br. 



Plant body a stout suberect stem (rootstock) with clustered 

 leaves. Sporangia with a rudimentary ring, opening longitudi- 

 ally, borne in panicles on altered portion of the leaf. The family 

 contains three genera, only one of which is represented with us. 



I. OSMUNDA L. Flowering-fern. 

 Fertile fronds or fertile portions very much contracted, 

 bearing short-pedicelled, naked sporangia on the margin of the 

 rachis-like divisions. Sporangia large, globular, opening by a 

 longitudinal cleft into two halves, bearing near the apex a few 

 parallel strise, the rudiment of a transverse ring. Spores green. 

 Named for Osmunder, a Saxon name for the divinity Thor. A 

 genus containing six species mostly north temperate. 

 * Fronds bipinnate, fertile at the apex. 

 kX I. O. regalis L. Stipes tufted, i° — \\° long, erect, naked ; 

 fronds 2° — 4° long, 1° or more broad ; sterile pinna: 6' — 12' long, 

 2 — 4' broad ; pinnules oblong-ovate to lance-oblong, sessile or 

 slightly stalked ; the fertile pinnules cylindrical, panicled ; tex- 

 ture subcoriaceous ; rachis and both sides naked. (O. specta- 

 bilis Willd., O. glaucescens Link.) Canada to Florida and Mis- 

 sissippi. 



** Sterile fronds bipittncLtifid. 



\jji 2. O. Claytoniana L. Stipes tufted, 1° or more long, 

 clothed with loose woolly tomentum when young, naked when 

 mature; fronds 1° — 2° long, 8' — 12' broad; pinnae oblong-lan- 

 ceolate with oblong, obtuse divisions ; 2 — 5 pairs of central 

 pinnae fertile fertile pinnules dense, cylindrical ; texture her- 

 baceous. (0. interrupta Michx.) Canada to Kentucky, and 

 northward. 



ijtjl 3. O. cinnamomea L. (CiNNAMON-FERN.) Stipes dense- 

 ly tufted, 1° or more long, the sterile and fertile fronds dis- 



