MALE FERN.

[Illustration: ]

ASPIDIUM FILIX-MAS, Swartz.

Male Fern.

Aspidium Filix-mas:—Root-stock short, stout, ascending or erect; stalks

rarely over a foot long, very chaffy with large lanceolate-acuminate

scales and smaller ones intermixed; fronds standing in a crown, one to

three feet long, half-evergreen, firm-membranaceous, broadly

oblong-lanceolate, slightly narrowed toward the base, pinnate or

sub-bipinnate; pinnæ lanceolate-acuminate from a broad base, pinnatifid

almost or rarely quite to the midrib; segments smooth and full-green

above, slightly paler and bearing a few little chaffy scales beneath,

normally oblong, obtuse or even truncate, slightly toothed, in another

form ovate-lanceolate, acutish and pinnately incised; veins free, forked

or pinnately branched into from two to five veinlets; sori rather large,

nearer the midvein than the margin, commonly occurring only on the lower

half or two-thirds of each segment; indusia convex when young, rather

firm, smooth or minutely glandular, orbicular-reniform.

_Aspidium Filix-mas_, Swartz, in Schraders Journal, ii., (1800) p. 38;

Syn. Fil., p. 55.—Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p. 45, t. 44.—Willdenow,

Sp. Pl., v., p. 259.—Link, Fil. Hort. Berol., p. 105.—Ruprecht,

Distr. Krypt. Vasc, in Imp. Ross., p. 35.—Kunze, in Sill. Journ.,

July, 1848, p. 83.—Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 92; Aspidium, p.

55.—Eaton, in Gray’s Manual, ed. v., p. 666.—Milde, in Nov. Act.

Acad. Nat. Cur., xxvi., ii., p. 507; Fil. Eur. et Atl., p.

118.—Miquel, Prolusio Fl. Jap., p. 117.

_Polypodium Filix-mas_, Linnæus, Sp. Pl. p. 1551.

_Polystichum Filix-mas_, Roth, “Fl. Germ., iii., p. 82.”—Koch, Syn. Fl.

Germ, et Helv., ed. iii., p. 733.

_Nephrodium Filix-mas_, Richard, “in Desvaux, Mém. Soc. Linn., vi., p.

60.”—Hooker, Brit. Ferns, t. 15; Sp. Fil., iv., p. 117.—Hooker &

Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 272 (excl. vars. γ and δ).

_Dryopteris Filix-mas_, Schott, Gen. Fil.—Newman, Hist. Brit. Ferns, ed.

iii., p. 184.

_Lastrea Filix-mas_, Presl, Tent. Pterid., p. 76.—Moore, Brit. Ferns,

Nat. Pr., t. xiv, xv, xvi, xvii.

Var. _incisum_, Mettenius:—Frond ample, two to three feet long, scantily

chaffy on the rachis; segments rather distant, lanceolate, tapering

to a sub-acute point, incised on the margins with serrated lobules;

indusium rather delicate, in age shrivelling or falling

off.—Aspidium, p. 55; Milde, Fil. Eur. et Atl., p. 120.—_Lastrea

Filix-mas_, var. _incisa_, Moore, l.c.—_Nephrodium Filix-mas_, var.

_affine_, Hooker & Baker. l.c.

Var. _paleaceum_, Mettenius:—Frond ample, two to three feet long, stalk

and rachis very chaffy with ferruginous or blackish scales;

segments oblong, truncate, nearly entire on the margins; indusium

coriaceous, the edges much incurved, sometimes splitting in

two.—Aspidium, p. 55; Milde, Fil. Eur. Atl., p. 121.—_Lastrea

Filix-mas_, var. _paleacea_, Moore, l.c.—_Aspidium paleaceum_, Don,

“Prodr. Fl. Nepal., p. 4;” Fournier, Pl. Mex., Crypt., p. 92.

_Aspidium parallelogrammum_, Kunze, in Linnæa, xiii., p. 146,

etc.—_Nephrodium Filix-mas_, var. _parallelogrammum_, Hooker, Sp.

Fil., iv., p. 116.—_Dichasium parallelogrammum_ and _D.

patentissimum_, Fée, Gen. Fil., p. 302, t. xxiii, _B._—_Lastrea

truncata_, Brackenridge, Fil. of U. S. Expl. Exped., p. 195, t. 27

(admirable).[1]

Hab.—In one form or another, this species occurs in America from

Greenland to Peru, throughout Europe and Asia, in parts of Africa, and

in many islands of the ocean. The ordinary European form corresponding

to Moore’s plate XIV has been collected in British Columbia by Dr.

Lyall, in Keweenaw Peninsula of Northern Michigan by Dr. Robbins, and

in the mountains of Colorado by Messrs. Hall & Harbour and Mr.

Brandegee. Var. _incisum_ was found at the base of calcareous rocks at

Royston Park, Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada, by Mrs. Roy, and in the

mountains of Colorado by Dr. Scovill, for one of whose specimens I am

indebted to D. A. Watt, Esq., of Montreal. Fragments of apparently the

same form have been received from Dakota. The Californian plant

mentioned in Plantæ Hartwegianæ, p. 342, is better regarded as a form

of _Aspidium rigidum_. Var. _paleaceum_ has not been found in either

Canada or the United States, but is well known in Mexico, in Europe, in

Southern Asia, in the Hawaiian Islands, etc.

Description:—This fern has a stout, usually ascending, but sometimes

erect, very chaffy root-stock, very much like that of the species last

described. It sometimes rises a little above the surface of the ground,

forming a short trunk.

The stalks seem to vary a good deal in length, being sometimes only two

or three inches long, and at other times over a foot. They are clustered

at the growing end of the root-stock, and their bases, which remain long

after the rest has perished, are consolidated with the root-stock. The

stalks are always more or less chaffy, the chaff mainly confined to the

lowest portion in some plants, and in others following the stalk and the

rachis to the apex of the frond. The largest scales are sometimes fully

an inch long. They are narrowly lanceolate-acuminate, distantly

ciliate-denticulate on the margin, and composed of narrow but somewhat

sinuous cells. Mixed in with them are smaller scales, from two to four

lines long, and more distinctly ciliate-toothed. The color of the scales

is different in different specimens, varying from bright golden-brown to

ferruginous-brown with a darker spot at the base, and from this to nearly

black, especially in the sub-tropical and tropical forms of var.

_paleaceum_. Such specimens are sometimes fairly shaggy with the

abundance of scales, which are also found, decreasing in number and in

size, on the midribs of the pinnæ, and even on the lower surface of the

segments. The usual number of fibro-vascular bundles is seven.

The fronds are broadly lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate in outline,

usually narrowed a little, or even conspicuously narrowed, at the base,

and acute or acuminate at the apex. They are of a full herbaceous green

above, a little paler beneath, and of a rather firmly membranaceous, or,

in tropical forms, of a sub-coriaceous texture. Their average length is

from one to two feet, but fronds three feet long are occasionally seen;

and one very fine example of var. _paleaceum_, collected in Chiapas,

Mexico, by Dr. Ghiesbreght, is three feet and a half long, exclusive of

the stalk.

The pinnæ are sometimes very numerous; as many as forty on each side have

been counted on very large fronds, but the number is more commonly less

than twenty. They are lanceolate-acuminate in shape, tapering from a

broad base to a slender point; in the common form their average breadth

at the base is half to three-fourths of an inch, but in var. _incisum_

they are often fully two inches broad at the base. Their length is from

three or four inches in the common form to six or seven inches in the

largest specimens I have seen. The midrib of the pinnæ is always more or

less winged, so that the pinnæ may be said to be pinnatifid, and the

segments to be connected by a narrow wing.

The shape of the segments differs in the several varieties; in the type

they are very close together, oblong, with a rounded apex, and not very

deeply toothed: in var. _paleaceum_ they are also closely-placed, and

oblong, but mostly truncate at the apex; and in var. _incisum_ they are

much larger and less closely-placed, ovate-lanceolate in shape, and

incised with toothed lobes along the sides.

The veins are free, and are forked or alternately divided into from two

to five veinlets. The sori are rather large, placed nearer the midvein

than the margin, and are rarely produced towards the apex of the

segments.

The indusium is orbicular-reniform, and almost always smooth. Its edges

are turned downward, enclosing the sporangia, when they are young, and

sometimes this convexity is permanent. Rarely the sinus is so deep that

the indusium at last becomes divided. The spores are ovoid, and have a

muricately roughened surface.

The rhizomes have been used for ages as an anthelmintic, but probably

have no greater virtue in this direction than those of many other common

species.

TRIFOLIATE CLIFF-BRAKE.

CLAYTON’S CLIFF-BRAKE.

SLENDER CLIFF-BRAKE.

[Illustration: ]

PELLÆA TERNIFOLIA, Link.

Trifoliate Cliff-Brake.

Pellæa ternifolia:—Root-stock short, thick, nodose, chaffy with very

narrow dark-brown scales; stalks clustered, purplish-black and polished,

three to six inches long; fronds as long as or longer than the stalks,

oblong-linear; pinnæ from four to fifteen pairs, all but a few of the

highest ones deeply tripartite; segments elongated-oval or

linear-obovate, sub-coriaceous, somewhat glaucous beneath, green above,

slightly mucronate, the middle one in large fronds indistinctly

petiolulate; fertile ones with the edges much recurved; involucre broad,

the edge only membranaceous.

_Pellæa ternifolia_, Link, Fil. Hort. Berol., p. 59.—Fée, Gen. Fil., p.

129.—Hooker, Sp. Fil., i., p. 142; Fil. Exot., t. xv.—Fournier, Pl.

Mex., Crypt., p. 118.—Eaton, Ferns of the Southwest, p. 321.

_Pteris ternifolia_, Cavanilles, “Præl. 1801, No. 657.”—Hooker &

Greville, Ic. Fil., t. 126.

_Platyloma ternifolium_, J. Smith.—Brackenridge, Fil. U. S. Ex. Exped.,

p. 94.

_Allosorus ternifolius_, Kunze, in Linnæa, xxiii., p. 220.

_Pteris subverticillata_, Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 103.—Willdenow, Sp. Pl.,

v., p. 375.

Hab.—Texas, Trécul, No. 1334, according to Fournier. New Mexico,

Wright, according to Hooker in _Filices Exoticæ_. The only specimens

from Texas which I have of this species were collected by Dr. Sutton

Hayes, near the headwaters of the Rio Colorado of Texas. It is a common

Mexican species; it is found as far South as Peru, and reap pears in

the Hawaiian Islands.

Description:—This belongs to the same group of species as _P.

Wrightiana_, _brachyptera_ and _Ornithopus_. It has the same nodose and

scaly root-stock, dark and polished stalk, glaucescent frond and

mucronulate pinnules. In Mexico, South America and the Hawaiian Islands

it never occurs with more than trifoliolate pinnules, and this is perhaps

the best reason for considering _P. Wrightiana_ a distinct species. The

pinnæ are tripartite rather than trifoliolate, while in the other fern

just referred to, when trifoliolate the odd pinnule is more distinct and

usually stalked, a distinction indicated by Hooker, but for which I am

more indebted to the accurate discrimination of Mr. Faxon. In more

southern localities the fronds are considerably larger than Dr. Hayes’

specimens, and the segments of the pinnæ ampler. In very dry seasons the

pinnæ are considerably deflexed. The spores are trivittate as in the

related species.

PELLÆA ATROPURPUREA, Link.

Clayton’s Cliff-Brake.

Pellæa atropurpurea:—Root-stock short, knotted, chaffy with very narrow

long-pointed soft cinnamon-brown scales; stalks four to eight inches

high, terete, wiry, dark-purple or reddish-black, polished or more or

less pubescent with paleaceous hairs; fronds six to twelve inches long,

ovate or oblong-lanceolate in outline, evergreen, sub-coriaceous,

pinnate, usually twice pinnate near the base; rachises smooth or hairy;

pinnæ four to twelve pairs, the lower ones long-stalked, and divided into

five to nine pinnules; upper pinnæ and the pinnules nearly sessile; oval

to linear-oblong, at the base truncate or sub-cordate or sometimes

hastate, obtuse or obtusely mucronulate, terminal ones longest; veins

obscure, mostly twice forked; involucre rather broad, formed of the

continuously recurved margin, paler and membranaceous on the edge, not

fully covering the ripened sporangia.

_Pellæa atropurpurea_, Link, Fil. Hort. Berol., p. 59.—Fée, Gen. Fil., p.

129.—Hooker, Sp. Fil., ii., p. 138.—Eaton, in Chapman’s Flora, p.

589; Gray’s Manual, ed. v., p. 660; Ferns of the South-West, p.

319.—Lawson, in Canad. Naturalist, i., p. 272.—Hooker & Baker, Syn.

Fil., p. 147.—Fournier, Pl. Mex., Crypt., p. 119.—Williamson, Ferns

of Kentucky, p. 52, t. 12.

_Pteris atropurpurea_, Linnæus, Sp. Pl., p. 1534.—Michaux, Fl. Bor.-Am.,

ii., p. 261.—Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 106.—Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p.

93, t. 101.—Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p. 375.—Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept.,

ii., p. 668.

_Platyloma atropurpureum_, J. Smith.—Torrey, Fl. New York, ii., p. 488.

_Allosorus atropurpureus_, Kunze, in Sill. Journ., July, 1848, p. 86;

Linnæa, xxiii., p. 218.—Gray, Manual, ed. ii., p. 591.—Mettenius,

Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 44.

_Pellæa mucronata_, Fée, 9me Mém., p. 8.

_Pellæa glabella_, Mettenius & Kuhn, in Linnæa, xxxvi., p. 87.

_Pteris spiculata_, Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p. 92, t. 100.

_Pteris Adianti facie, caule ramulis petiolisque politiore nitore

nigricantibus, etc._, Gronovius, Fl. Virginica, ed. i., p. 197.

Hab.—Crevices of shaded calcareous rocks; from Canada to the Rocky

Mountains of British America, and southward to Alabama, Arkansas,

Indian Territory and Arizona. It has been found in several parts of

Mexico, and even in South America (“Andes of Mecoya, Pearce,” according

to _Synopsis Filicum_). It was collected by John Clayton about 1736,

“on the shore of the river Rappahannock in a shady place by the root of

a juniper near the promontory called Point Lookout,” and I take

pleasure in giving it an English name in his honor.

Description:—The root-stock of this fern is rather short, usually

somewhat nodose, and densely chaffy with very narrow long-pointed soft

bright-brown scales, which in the specimens examined are destitute of

midnerve.

The stalks are rigid and wiry, terete, nearly black in color, but with a

slight reddish tinge, and usually more or less pubescent with very narrow

chaffy hairs, which are often more abundant and harsher along the

rachises, making them almost hirsute. _Pellæa glabella_ was founded on

specimens from Missouri and the North-West, which had the stalk perfectly

smooth, and the chaff of the root-stock a trifle wider than usual. The

section of the stalk shows a single U-shaped fibro-vascular bundle, and a

strong outer sclerenchymatous sheath.

The fronds are developed late in the Spring, and remain green through the

next Winter. They are almost coriaceous in texture, smooth and

dark-bluish-green above, paler, and sometimes slightly chaffy beneath.

They are from a few inches to about a foot in length, and vary in outline

from ovate to oblong-lanceolate. In seedling plants the earliest fronds

are round-cordate, the next cordate-ovate, and then follow trifoliate,

pinnate, and finally mature bipinnate fronds. The largest fronds have

about five pairs of compound pinnæ, each with from three to eleven

pinnules, and above these are from four to six pairs of simple pinnæ,

besides the terminal one, which is often the longest of all.

The pinnules and the simple pinnæ of the sterile fronds are commonly

oval, and not more than half an inch long, but those of the fertile

fronds are narrower and longer, sometimes nearly two inches long. The

base is either truncate or slightly cordate; sometimes where there is a

transition from compound to simple pinnæ, a pinna will be found

conspicuously auricled on both sides, or on the upper side only. Forked

pinnules are occasionally seen.

The margin is continuously recurved to form a rather broad involucre, and

the very edge is somewhat thinner and whiter. The veins are pinnately

arranged on both sides of the midvein, and fork about twice before

reaching the margin. The upper part of the veinlets is covered with

sporangia, which as they ripen push out from beneath the involucre. The

spores are obscurely tetrahedral and trivittate, as in the other species

of the genus.

This fern very often grows in company with _Camptosorus rhizophyllus_,

and its root-stock is often hidden beneath mosses of the genus

_Anomodon_: it takes kindly to cultivation, especially if it be planted

in the crevices of calcareous rock-work. It may occur on other than

calcareous rock, but I have never seen it on either granite, sandstone or

basalt.

Names for varieties of this species have been proposed by Pursh, and by

Fournier, but the characters assigned do not seem sufficiently

distinctive.

PELLÆA GRACILIS, Hooker.

Slender Cliff-Brake.

Pellæa gracilis:—Root-stock slender, creeping, cord-like, scantily

furnished with little ovate appressed scales; stalks scattered, slender,

a span long or less, brownish-stramineous, somewhat shining, darker and

slightly chaffy at the base; fronds two to four inches long, thin and

tender, smooth, ovate or ovate-oblong, pinnate; pinnæ few, the lower two

to four pairs once or twice pinnatifid, the uppermost simple; segments of

the sterile fronds adnate-decurrent, roundish-obovate, crenately lobed

and toothed; those of the taller fertile fronds lanceolate or

linear-oblong, and more distinct, entire or auricled, terminal ones

longest; veins rather distant, mostly once forked; involucre broad and

continuous, delicately membranaceous.

_Pellæa gracilis_, Hooker, Sp. Fil., ii., p. 138, t. cxxxiii, B.—Eaton,

in Gray’s Manual, ed. v., p. 659; Ferns of the South-West, p.

319.—Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 145.—Porter & Coulter, Syn. Fl.

Colorado, p. 153.

_Pteris gracilis_, Michaux, Fl. Bor.-Am., ii., p. 262.—Swartz, Syn. Fil.,

p. 99.—Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p. 376.—Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept., ii.,

p. 668.—Hooker, Fl. Bor.-Am., ii., p. 264.

_Allosorus gracilis_, Presl, Tent. Pterid., p. 153.—Torrey, Fl. New York,

ii., p. 486.—Gray, Manual, ed. i., p. 624; ed. ii., p. 591, t.

ix.—Parry, in Owen’s Geol. Surv. of Wisconsin, etc., p.

621.—Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 44.

_Cheilanthes gracilis_, Kaulfuss, Enum. Fil., p. 209.

_Pteris Stelleri_, Gmelin, “Nov. Com. Petrop., xii., p. 519, t. 12, f.

1.”

_Allosorus Stelleri_, Ruprecht, Distr. Crypt. Vasc. in Imp. Ross., p.

47.—Ledebour, Fl. Ross., iv., p. 526.—Moore, Ind. Fil., p.

46.—Lawson, in Canad. Naturalist, i., p. 272.

_Allosorus minutus & Pteris minuta_, Turczaninow, _fide_ Moore.

Hab.—Crevices of damp and shaded calcareous rocks, especially in deep

glens; Labrador, Butler, to British Columbia, and southward to Iowa,

Parry, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Also in Colorado, near Breckinridge

City, Brandegee. Siberia, Tibet and the Himalayas. It is found in

Sunderland, Massachusetts; at Trenton Falls, Chittenango Falls, and

other deep glens in Central New York; in Lycoming and Sullivan

Counties, Pennsylvania, and in other similar places in Vermont,

Michigan, etc., but is by no means a common plant.

Description:—This is the most delicate of all the _Pellæas_, and has

fronds a good deal like those of _Cryptogramme acrostichoides_, but

tenderer, and with sub-marginal fructification. The root-stock is very

slender, scarcely more than half a line in thickness, and sometimes two

or three inches long. It is so hidden in the crevices of the rocks that

it is seldom secured by collectors. The scales are minute, appressed to

the root-stock, and almost filmy in their delicacy.

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

pinnæ. 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 pinnæ are twice pinnatifid in

the largest specimens, but more commonly but once pinnatifid. In the

sterile fronds the segments of the pinnæ 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

segments are more distinct, longer and narrower, measuring often six to

ten lines in length and one or two in width. The terminal pinna of the

frond and the terminal segments of the pinnæ are considerably longer than

the others. The veins are conspicuous, and distant, much more so than in

our other species of _Pellæa_. They fork once about midway between 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 delicate than the frond

itself. The sporangia are comparatively scanty, and are fully covered by

the involucre. The spores are spheroid-tetrahedral and obscurely

trivittate.

Mr. Moore and some other authors are disposed to insist on the right of

priority belonging to the specific name _Stelleri_. But the name

_gracilis_ has been used by nearly every writer on American Ferns since

the time of Michaux, and will most probably be kept up rather than the

other.

It should be noted that Ruprecht considered his _Allosorus Stelleri_ to

be distinct from our plant, and mentions several points of difference in

his work on the Distribution of Vascular Cryptogamia in the Russian

Empire.

The figure is taken from specimens collected in Sunderland, Hampshire

County, Massachusetts, by the late Rev. David Peck.