Part 5

Var. _obtusilobata_, Torrey, Fl. New York, ii., p. 499, t. clx (_Onoclea obtusilobata_, Schkuhr), is not a permanent variation of the species, but is based on a not infrequent condition of the plant, in which the pinnæ of some of the foliaceous fronds become deeply pinnatifid into obovate segments, which have mostly free veins and imperfectly developed sori. The indusia appear as little whitish scales on the back of the veins. It occurs in almost all places where the plant is common, is often produced from root-stocks which bear also normal fronds, and presents all gradations from the usual sterile frond to the proper fertile one. _Ragiopteris onocleoides_ of Presl is founded on a young fertile frond of this species placed with a sterile one of what Milde judges to be a monstrous form of _Aspidium Filix-mas_. Maximowicz describes a var. _interrupta_, from the Amoor region, in which the fertile frond nearly equals the sterile, and has elongated pinnæ, with remote segments. This condition is also sometimes seen in American specimens, and is hardly a true variety.

In an article on “The late Extinct Floras of North America,” which appeared in Vol. ix of the Annals of the New York Lyceum of Natural History, in April, 1868, Professor Newberry describes certain fossil specimens of ferns occurring in Miocene argillaceous limestone at Fort Union, Dacotah, and refers them with little hesitation to this species. I have not seen the specimens, but, as similar venation and not very dissimilar fronds are seen in Woodwardia and Pteris, one may perhaps doubt the absolute certainty of the identification.

Footnotes

[1]Milde indicates several other unimportant variations; and Hooker & Baker have as varieties of this species the East Indian _Aspidium cochleatum_, and _Aspidium elongatum_, from Madeira and the Canary Islands. The latter they give as occurring also in the southern United States, evidently supposing it to be the long-lost _A. Ludovicianum_ of Kunze. For abundant synonymy of _Aspidium Filix-mas_ the student is referred especially to the works of Hooker, Milde, Mettenius and Moore, as quoted above.

[2]See the “Flora of New York” for some figures of laciniated and forking fronds.

[3]Prof. Amos Eaton, grandfather of the present writer. Eaton’s “Manual of Botany” went through eight editions from 1817 to 1841.

[4]I find one or two instances of a slight enlargement of the apex, as if there were an attempt to form a proliferous bud.

[5]“In _O. sensibilis_ the sori are borne on the middle of the vein, and consist of a tough cylindrical receptacle, three or four diameters in height, bearing sporangia thickly all over its surface, and covered when young by a delicate hood-like indusium, attached half-way or more around the base of the receptacle on the inferior side, and having the crenulate-margined opening toward the apex of the segment. At an early stage the blackberry-shaped sorus is almost entirely covered by the indusium, which resembles a closely drawn cowl, but with the growth of the sporangia it is thrown back, or rent, and soon disappears, the sori becoming confluent. The receptacle is very persistent, and may be seen, covered with the stalks of the sporangia, in the dried last-year’s fertile fronds, which are always found where the plant grows.”

Transcriber’s Notes

--Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.

--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.

--Only in the text versions, delimited italicized text in _underscores_ (the HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)

--Only in the ASCII text version, delimited translated Greek letters in {braces} (the UTF text and HTML versions preserve the Greek letters.)