HOW TO KNOW FERNS 



253 



moist woods. The Maidenhair has a cosy way of blanketing her 

 spores by folding over the tips of the lobes 

 of her pinnules to protect them. 



The Bracken. Pteris 



This great triangular fern is a cosmo- 

 polite. It grows in waste, places, fence 



corners, borders of woods, in almost any 



dry or moist place in North America. It 



clothes certain mountains in the California 



coast range. It likewise clothes Scottish 



mountains and the Alps and the mountains 



of Sicily. Many superstitions and legends 



cluster around it. The Bracken is valuable as a lesson on the 



intricate patterns of the fern leaf, a lesson in pinnateness. The 

 a ■ two lower branchlike pinnae are large and 



4g& spreading and are in themselves three times 



pinnate ; the pinnae higher up are twice pin- 

 nate; while the main frond near the tip is 

 once pinnate and at the tip is merely lobed. 

 It grows to a height of from one to three 

 feet usually but in favorable locations may 

 attain six feet. It covers its spore cases by 

 folding the margins of its pinnules over 

 them; the fruiting pinnules look as if they 

 were hemmed and the edges of the hem 

 embroidered with brown wool; but if the 



latter is examined through a lens it is found 



to be made up of spore cases. 



The Cliff Brakes. Pellaea 



There are only two species of these 

 commonly found. • Both bear their spore 

 cases on the under side of the fronds, be- 

 neath the folded over margin of the pin- 

 nules, much as in the Bracken. 



The Slender Cliff Brake. This delicate 

 little fern, not more than from three to six 

 inches high, grows in shady and moist 

 places, especially on limestone rocks. The Th %-!t? d 

 fertile frond differs from the sterileTfrond in form 



