OBSERVATIONS ON NEPHRODIUM SIMULA! UM. 



By J. C. Buchheister. 



A piece of low woodland near Little Ferry, New 

 Jersey, on the banks of the Hackensack River, on a per- 

 fect September day. All around the two Woodwardias 

 IV. areolata and W . virginica form a veritable sea. In- 

 terspersed, equally abundant, are Neph radium novc- 

 boracense and N. thclyptcris, with here and there some 

 Athyrium thelypteroides and Athyrium filix foemina, 

 the latter often forked and crested. At certain inter- 

 vals arise fine plants of Osmunda regalis, and 0. ciir 

 namomea, with fronds often 5 feet long-. There are 

 hardly any flowering plants in this particular woods. 

 The trees are mostly hickories and chestnuts, the un- 

 derbrush Clethra alnifolia. But it is not any of these 

 plants, on which my attention is riveted. Sitting on a 

 tree stump, I gaze upon several sturdy plants of Ne- 

 phrodium simulatum, which grow in a sort of "fairy 

 ring" around a mouldering stump, which is mostly de- 

 cayed, forming a little hillock of rich earth. The de- 

 scriptions of the books are in my mind, but here I am 

 making some observations of my own, in the field, face 

 to face with the living plant. 



The habit of this fern reminds me of nothing so 

 much as it does of N. cristatum. There are the stiff 

 erect fertile fronds standing up in the middle, while 

 the sterile ones droop around them in lax manner. The 

 latter have a much larger leaf surface, for fruit-bear- 

 ing contracts the cells of a frond. Nephrodium nove- 

 boracense grows in a lax way, and. the habit of N 

 simulatum, as it grows here, is so marked, that I would 

 never confound it with the New York fern. In Fact, 

 this station was new to me, and my attention was at- 



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