Descriptions of the Species. 
*59 
c. Section of stipe, and Plate LXX. Fig. 2. Frond reduced and 
pinna, natural size. 
Crown erect, paleaceous, with numerous, lanceolate, dark 
scales. Frond two to three-pinnate, deep green, firmly herbaceous, 
or sub-coriaceous, glabrous, ovate lanceolate, one-half to one and 
a half feet long, two to six inches broad, with a channelled, green, 
naked rachis, and a similar stipe three to six inches long. Pinnae 
ten to twenty alternate or sub-opposite pairs, deltoid or deltoid 
acuminate, often all fertile except the lower two pairs, which are 
then shorter, and not so much cut as the others, but frequently 
whole fronds are barren when they are different from the fertile. 
Barren pinnae blunt, cut to near the mid-rib into several cuneate, 
flabellate, deeply lobed pinnules, above which are bifid, and then 
simple pinnules, more or less confluent. Fertile pinnae longer, 
cut throughout into distinct, separate, pointed pinnules, of which 
the upper are simple, gradually longer downward, then bifid and 
trifid, and with the lower pinnules ranging from flabellately three to 
five-lobed to fully pinnate, with three to four pairs of linear, or 
sometimes bifid, pointed segments. All the pinnules or segments, 
as well as the rachis of the pinna, are about a half-line broad, and 
consist of a thickly margined vein only. Sori one to three lines 
long, marginal along the inner face of each segment, or in partly 
fertile fronds sometimes intramarginal. The lower pinnules on 
the upper side of the pinnae are parallel with the rachis, and some- 
times very noticeable when much larger than the others, but with 
no corresponding pinnule on the lower side. This is a most 
variable plant, and has been made into several species ; but there 
is every possible gradation, and even permanent forms cannot be 
selected. 
Caenopteris furcata, Bergins (Asplenium stans, Kze.) is the 
small plant growing on trees, in which the pinnules are all simple, 
or the lower only bifid. 
A frond in Albany Museum marked var. / 3 . is two and a half 
feet long, one foot broad at the middle, very unlike the ordinary 
form, and more nearly approaching A. flaccidum except in texture. 
It has pinnae six inches long, one inch broad at the base, and 
