142 
THE GENERA AND SPECIES OF CULTIVATED FERNS. 
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Spore-cases oval, vertical, arranged in a compact row on each side the midrib of the segments, which are 
linear, unilateral, vertical, and conniving with the opposite ones. Fertile appendices terminal, forming a reflexed 
pinnate reclinate crest of linear segments, which have an indexed indusiform 
margin. Fronds simple and linear, or dichotomous, multipartite, or entire 
and flabellate, from two inches to about a foot high. Bhizome caespitose or 
tufted.—Some of the most singular-looking plants among Ferns are found in 
this genus, of which only a solitary species is known in cultivation. Some of 
them have their fronds all fertile, and others have a few sterile ones; all are 
low-growing kinds, scarcely exceeding a foot high. Although there are many 
known species, and these very extensively distributed in both hemispheres, 
yet they are almost unknown in cultivation, being very rarely imported. 
The most northern limit of the genus is New Jersey, in North America, and 
they extend southward to the Cape of Good Hope and Yan Diemen’s Land. 
Fig. 86 represents a whole plant of S. pusilla (full size). 
1. S. pusilla , Pursh.—A dwarf hardy or frame species, from North Ame- 
Fronds of two kinds; the sterile simple, linear, glaucous, twisted, 
nca. 
about an inch long; the fertile erect, filiform, compressed, two or three inches 
high, with linear-pinnate, reclinate segments on the apex of the frond, in 
four or five pairs. Fronds terminal, adherent to a tufted rhizome. 
1H NEIMIA, Swartz. —Name derived from aneimon , naked ; in allusion 
faX to the fertile portions of the frond, on which the sori are situated, 
being without a cover. 
Sori unilateral on linear segments, forming dense panicles. Spore-cases 
oval, vertical, naked. Veins forked; venules direct, free. Fronds of two 
kinds, sterile and fertile, from a few inches to two feet high, smooth or hairy. 
Fertile fronds stipitate, usually tripartite, decompound with the two opposite 
branches, contracted, erect, constituting unilateral sporangiferous compound 
panicles; sterile portion spreading, pinnate, bipinnate or decompound, reclin¬ 
ing or semi-erect, and usually much shorter than the fertile appendices. 
Sterile frond sometimes tripartite, with the two opposite segments small. 
Bhizome fasciculate, erect or creeping.—Few plants are more striking and 
attractive, even to a casual observer, or more truly beautiful and interesting to 
the naturalist, than what are commonly denominated flowering ferns. It is a 
character possessed by this and an allied genus in common with Osmunda, to have 
their naked spore-cases borne in clusters or panicles on the apex of the fronds, and, 
being always contracted, they hear a great resemblance to the inflorescence of 
phaenogamous plants; hence the appellation of flowering ferns. The present 
genus originally contained nearly fifty species, which are natives principally of 
South America and the West Indian Islands, one species, however, being detected 
in Abyssinia, one at the Cape of Good Hope, and another in the East Indies ; hut 
on account of a free and reticulated venation existing in the group, they have 
been separated by modern authors, and the species which are retained as Aneimias 
have a free venation, while those with reticulated veins form the genus Aneirni- 
dictyon. Fig. 87 represents the apex of a fertile panicle and a sterile pinule of 
A. villosa (nat size). 
1. A. collina , Baddi.—An elegant evergreen stove fern, from Brazil. Sterile 
fronds hairy, lanceolate, pinnate, about a foot long, deep and bright green; 
pinnae membranous, oblong, petiolulate, imbricate, round at the apex, upper 
base round and sub-auriculate, lower truncate-cuneate, and crenate at the mar¬ 
gin. Fertile fronds erect, one to one and a half feet high, tripartite; sterile por¬ 
tion lanceolate, eight or ten inches long. The rachis and stipes of both fronds 
are densely covered throughout with ferruginous hairs ; they are terminal and 
adherent to an erect fasciculate rhizome. 
2. A. tenella , Swartz.—A dwarf-growing evergreen stove fern, a native of the 
Fig- West Indies and tropics of South America. Sterile fronds slender, hairy, four or 
five inches long, lightish green, pinnate; pinnae oblong, deeply pinnatifid, with cuneate segments dentate at the 
apex. Fertile fronds slender, hairy, erect, tripartite, six to eight inches high; sterile portion spreading, trian¬ 
gularly elongate, pinnate; pinnae deeply pinnatifid, with cuneate segments dentate at the apex. Fronds lateral, 
or terminal; adherent to a slender, somewhat creeping rhizome. 
3. A. villosa , Humboldt. (A. flexuosa, Eaddi , and of Authors). —A beautiful evergreen stove Fern from 
Brazil. Sterile fronds hairy, one foot long, bipinnate, light green; pinnae oblong, obtuse at the apex, inferior 
