O NO CLE A. 



13 



Species and Variety. 



O. germanica — ger-ma'-nic-a (German), Hooker. 



This beautiful species, usually found in gardens under the name of 

 Struthiopteris germanica, is the strongest-growing species known. Eaton, in 

 his splendid work, " Ferns of North America," says : " The Ostrich Fern 

 is one of our finest Ferns, being surpassed in grandeur only by Acrostichum 

 aureum, Woodwardia radicans, and perhaps Osmunda regalis. Its grand, 

 vase-like circle of foliage is often higher than a man's head, and sometimes 

 extends above his utmost reach." We have never seen it attain such dimensions 

 in this country, its broadly- spear- shaped fronds seldom reaching more than 

 4ft. in length under culture. The places where this Fern attains the 

 dimensions stated by Eaton are in low grounds, especially in fine alluvial soil, 

 subject to the overflow of rivers, from the Saskatchewan and Lake Winnipeg 

 to New Brunswick, and southward to Pennsylvania and Illinois. There, it is 

 stated, the barren fronds attain 10ft. in length. Under cultivation these are 

 much shorter, narrowed from the middle to the base, and abruptly terminate 

 in a point at their summit ; they are furnished with numerous stalkless leaflets, 

 the lowest being wavy and thrown back, and many of them pinnatifid (again 

 divided half-way to the midrib). The leaflets are of a light green colour and 

 of a soft, papery texture, and they are frequently injured by late spring and 

 early autumn frosts. The fertile fronds, produced only in autumn or late in 

 the summer, are disposed in the middle of the crown and perfectly erect ; they 

 are much shorter than the barren ones, and much contracted. The lobes of 

 the leaflets have their margins much recurved, so that the whole leaflet forms 

 a somewhat articulated, pod-like body. The sori (spore masses) are covered 

 by a delicate, cup-shaped involucre of a very fugacious nature. — Hooker, 

 Species Filicum, iv., p. 161. Nicholson, Dictionary of Gardening, ii., p. 497. 

 Eaton, Ferns of North America, ii., t. 73. 



O. orientalis — or-I-en-ta'-lis (Eastern), Hooker. 



This, the Struthiopteris pennsylvanica of Willdenow, is by some authors 

 considered as simply a form of 0. germanica, which it greatly resembles, 

 though its fronds are not attenuated at the base, the lower leaflets being as long 



