32. PINNATIFID SPLEENWORT
Asplenium pinnatifidum
New Jersey and Pennsylvania to Illinois, and southward to Alabama and Arkansas, on rocks. Four to fourteen inches long, with polished stalks, blackish below, green above, when young somewhat chaffy below.
Fronds.—Broadly lance-shaped, tapering to a long, slender point, pinnatifid or pinnate below; pinnæ rounded or the lowest tapering to a point, fruit-dots straight or somewhat curved; indusium straight or curved.
PLATE XXII
PINNATIFID SPLEENWORT
This plant resembles the Walking Leaf to such an extent that formerly it was not considered a separate species. The long, slender apex of its frond, which, it is said, sometimes takes root, as in the Walking Leaf, gave ground for its confusion with that fern. But the tapering apex of the frond of the Pinnatifid Spleenwort is not so long and the veins of the frond are free.
The Pinnatifid Spleenwort grows on rocks. Its usual companions are the Mountain Spleenwort and the Maidenhair Spleenwort. Williamson tells us that, though it is quite common in Kentucky, he has never found a frond which rooted at the apex. Eaton, however, speaks of "one or two instances of a slight enlargement of the apex, as if there were an attempt to form a proliferous bud."