BEAUTIFUL FERNS. 
39 
minute pointed scars. The mature stalk is roundish in section, 
the convexity being greatest on the side which corresponds to the 
under surface of the frond. The two convexities, anterior and 
posterior, are separated by two obscure angles or ridges, which 
extend the whole length of the stalk. The anterior, or flatter, 
convex surface is nearly black, while the other side is a dark pur- 
plish brown. The fibro-vascular bundle is U-shaped near the 
base of the stalk ; but higher up it is more like a broad, open V ; 
and just below the forking of the stalk it separates into two por- 
tions. The two branches of the stalk diverge at an angle of 
about fifty degrees, and rise obliquely, gracefully recurving till 
they nearly meet again. From the outer side of the curve each 
branch sends out from two to seven slender diverging branchlets, 
which are the rachises of the pinnae. The branchlets nearest the 
forking of the stalk are from four to fifteen inches long, those 
more remote successively shorter. Thus the whole frond is from 
five or six to fifteen or eighteen inches broad, and, while some- 
what funnel-form in the centre, radiates nearly horizontally towards 
the circumference. A pressed specimen can give but little idea 
of its graceful position. 
The pinnules, or leaflets, are from six to twelve lines long, and 
three or four broad, and are placed alternately on the rachises of 
the pinnae. They are very numerous, seldom fewer than twelve 
on each side of one of the middle (or lower) rachises, and in large 
fronds sometimes as many as forty on each side. The outer 
rachises bear fewer and fewer pinnules, and the outermost of even 
a very large frond will not have more than eight or ten on each 
