BEAUTIFUL FERNS. 1 33 
for four or five inches without roots or fronds.” The root- 
stock is much like that of A. Filix-mas, being very stout- 
closely covered with persistent stalk-bases and very chaffy. 
The chaff really grows mainly on the bases of the stalks, or 
covers the closely coiled buds which crown the root-stock. It is 
composed of shining ferruginous-brown thin lanceolate acumi- 
nate scales fully an inch in length, and destitute of a thick- 
ened midnerve. The fronds grow in elegant crowns from the 
apex of the root-stock, some six or eight or perhaps ten to 
a plant. The stalks vary in length, but are seldom more than 
a foot long. They are rather stout, round, but with a slight 
furrow in front, commonly reddish-brown in color, fading when 
dry to straw-color, and contain five or seven roundish fibro- 
vascular bundles, of which the two anterior ones are largest, 
and the next two the smallest. 
The outline of the fronds is ovate-lanceolate, varying to 
oblong-lanceolate. The frond is commonly not quite so wide 
at the base as in the middle, though in small specimens the 
base is often the widest. The texture is thicker than in any 
other of our Wood-ferns, and the fronds are fairly evergreen, 
not withering until the next year’s fronds begin to uncoil. 
In cutting, the fronds vary from pinnate, with pinnatifid pinnae 
and short nearly entire lobes, to twice pinnate, with pinnately- 
lobed segments. In the example selected for our plate the 
pinnules are oblong, obtuse and crenulate, or at most, cre- 
nately-toothed. Other, and perhaps no larger, fronds will have 
most of the pinnules twice or eveh thrice as long as these. 
