BEAUTIFUL FERNS. 
125 
The stalks are scattered along the root-stock, and are 
generally about five or six inches long, those of the fertile 
fronds longer, stouter and of a darker color than the others. 
They are smooth and somewhat polished, but lighter in color 
and far more tender in consistency than in most of our other 
species of this genus. 
The fertile and the sterile fronds are unlike, though both 
are very delicately membranaceous, and pinnate with once or 
twice pinnatifid pinnae. The rachis is not winged in its lower 
half, except in very small fronds, but above the middle it is 
narrowly winged, as are also its divisions. The lowest one 
or two pairs of pinnae are twice pinnatifid in the largest 
specimens, but more commonly but once pinnatifid. In the 
sterile fronds the segments of the pinnae are very plainly 
adnate to the secondary midrib, and are roundish or roundish- 
obovate in shape. They are from three to six lines long and 
about two-thirds as broad. Their margin is more or less 
lobed and crenately toothed. In the fertile fronds the seg- 
ments are more distinct, longer and narrower, measuring often 
six to ten lines in length and one or two in width. The ter- 
minal pinna of the frond and the terminal segments of the 
pinnae are considerably longer than the others. The veins 
are conspicuous, and distant, much more so than in our 
other species of Pellcea. They fork once about midway be- 
tween the midvein and the margin, and sometimes, especially 
in fertile fronds, a second time just within the margin. 
The involucre is continuous, broad, and even more del- 
