BEAUTIFUL FERNS. 
6 1 
The outline is exactly lanceolate, as the apex is acute, and the 
lower part gradually tapering to a somewhat narrowed base. 
The fronds are delicately, but densely, bipinnate. In a frond 
nine inches long there are about thirty primary pinnae on each 
side, and in one of the middle pinnae about ten oblong-ovate 
obtuse pinnately-incised pinnules on each side. The pinnules are 
from a line to two lines long, and are adnate to the secondary 
rachis by a more or less decurrent base. In large fronds the 
teeth of the pinnules are again crenately toothed ; but in small 
specimens the pinnules themselves are entire, or but slightly 
toothed. Two sterile fronds collected by Professor M. W. Har- 
rington, in Iliuliuk, Alaska, are broadly ovate-lanceolate in outline, 
and have acute primary pinnae ; and other specimens, some from 
Eastern Canada, collected by Mr. Watt, and some from North- 
ern Wisconsin, collected by Mr. Lapham, are much slenderer and 
less scaly than usual. This is the var. ^ of Hooker. Usually 
the fronds are rather rigid, full-green above, a little paler be- 
neath, and both surfaces, together with the rachis, especially the 
canal along the upper side of the rachis, are dotted with very 
minute pellucid pale amber-colored glands. The fronds com- 
monly fruit very fully, even the lowest pinna bearing sporan- 
gia. The indusia are very large, thin, orbicular, with a narrow 
sinus, more or less ragged or toothed and gland-bearing at the 
margin, and are so dense as to overlap each other, and nearly 
conceal the back of the pinnules. The spores are ovoid, and 
have a minutely verrucose or warty surface. 
The pleasant odor of the plant remains many years in the 
