26 
BEAUTIFUL FERNS. 
two roundish fibro-vascular bundles near the anterior side, 
and three or four smaller ones near the back. 
The fronds always form a crown, and vary from three 
or four to perhaps eight or ten from a single root-stock. 
The root-stocks often branch, probably by the formation of 
adventitious buds at the base of the stalks, and thus a single 
plant may develop into a large cluster, sending up numerous 
fronds of all sizes. 
The fronds of newly formed root-stocks, . whether grown 
from spores or derived from older plants by proliferous 
development, are, of course, smaller than those of well-estab- 
lished plants, but are generally also broader at the base, 
being deltoid-ovate, while the fronds of older plants are either 
narrowly or broadly ovate, but not deltoid, except in some 
forms of var. dilatatum. 
Var. vulgare has fronds usually about twelve or fifteen 
inches long, and four to seven inches broad in the middle, 
the shape being oblong-ovate. The texture is firmly mem- 
branaceous, and the color light-green, sometimes inclining to 
yellowish-green. The pinnae diverge from the rachis at an 
angle of from forty-five to sixty degrees. The lowest pinnae 
are separated from the next pair by an interval of one and 
a half to two inches, and are triangular-ovate in shape, the 
pinnules on the lower side being twice as long as the corres- 
ponding ones on the upper side, and the basal ones longest 
of all. The second pair of pinnae are a trifle narrower and 
commonly a little longer than the lowest, and the third pair 
