BEAUTIFUL FERNS. 
49 
plant is propagated chiefly by long and slender stolons, bear- 
ing appressed rudimentary stalk-bases. These stolons are 
said by Sachs to originate from buds formed on the stalks 
near the base: they run underground for several inches or a 
foot, and at the end rise to the surface and there thicken into 
a short erect caudex, covered by imbricating stalk-bases, and 
throwing up from the apex a grand vase-like circle of foliage, 
which is often higher than a man’s head, and sometimes ex- 
tends above his utmost reach. 
The stalks are seldom over a foot long: they are flat- 
tened, blackish, and chaffy at the base, but above ground 
they are green, drying dull-brown, somewhat four-sided, and 
deeply channelled in front, when dried furrowed on the sides 
also. They contain two flattened fibro-vascular bundles. The 
stalks of the sterile fronds are rather longer than the others, 
but more rigid, and remain erect till the second year. 
The sterile fronds are oblong-lanceolate in outline, grad- 
ually narrowed to the base from near the middle and abruptly 
short acuminate. The pinnae are usually of nearly equal 
breadth from the base to beyond the middle. They are pin- 
natifid to within a line of the midrib into numerous oblong 
and obtuse segments, the veins of which are free, simple and 
pinnately arranged on a midvein. 
The fertile fronds are produced late in the summer, and 
are contracted, much shorter than the others, and very rigid. 
The pinnae are sometimes nearly entire, and in other ex- 
amples pinnately lobed. The margins are. very much recurved. 
