96 



THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



Even Gray pronounces it "rare," so a novice who was 

 "just scraping an accjuaintance with nature" might surely be 

 excused for displaying considerable enthusiasm even if the 

 plant itself is not very attractive to the unknovang eye. Like 

 other Bofrychiuins, it bears but one frond annually, divided 

 after the fashion of its kind into a fertile and sterile portion. 

 It is so fat that, like other grape ferns, it makes no attempt to 



A moonwort with fertile and 

 sterile pinnae mixed. 



coil after the characteristic manner of fern crosiers, merely 

 bending its head a little as a concession to the custom of the 

 family. The blade is borne near the middle of the stem and 

 is usually pinnate having from two to eight pairs of fan- 

 shaped pinnae suggesting in shape the half moon. The fertile 

 division is about the same length as the sterile and twice or 

 thrice pinnate. As in other grape ferns, the bud for next 

 year is enclosed in the base of the stipe. 



