rOLYPODIUM PHEGOPTEKIS. 
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POLYPO’DIUM PHEGO'PTERIS. 
This species, by some botanists, bas been included in 
the following genera— Oymnocarpium, Lastraa, and Poly- 
itichum. In every instance, however, they retained the 
specific name, phegopteris, singularly inapplicable as it 
is; for phegos, a Birch-tree, and pteris , a Fern, literally 
the Beech Fern, has no reference either to its shape or to 
its haunts, for it is more rarely found in woods than 
on mountains. In English it is known as the Pale 
Mountain Polypody, Mountain Polypody, and Sun 
Fern, names referring to the high and fully-exposed- 
to-the-light situations in which it delights. 
Its root is dark-coloured, thread-shaped, wavy, widely- 
creeping, scaly, and slightly hairy, emitting fibrous 
rootlets in tufts wherever fronds are produced from it. 
Fronds scattered, erect, five to eighteen inches high, 
sharp-pointed, spear-head shaped, delicate-textured, 
covered with small hairs. Stem brittle, pale, slender, 
sometimes rather scaly, more than half its length un- 
leafleted. Leaflets sharp - pointed, opposite, the two 
lowest separated widely from those above them, bent 
forward, and rather hanging down. Most of the leaflets 
are deeply cut into numerous broad segments. Each 
segment is blunt, wavy, somewhat scolloped; sometimes, 
however, entire, oovered with fine hairs, and often 
fringed. The uppermost leaflets composing the sharp 
point of the frond are entire, and without segments. 
The mid-vein of each segment is wavy, and more hairy 
