2. O. Claytoniàna, L. ([Pl. 20], fig. 1–3.) Clothed with loose wool when young, soon smooth; fertile fronds taller than the sterile (2–4° high); pinnæ oblong-lanceolate, with oblong obtuse divisions; some (2–5 pairs) of the middle pinnæ fertile, these entirely pinnate; sporangia greenish, turning brown.—Low grounds, common. May.—Fruiting as it unfolds.
3. O. cinnamòmea, L. (Cinnamon Fern.) Clothed with rusty wool when young; sterile fronds tallest (at length 3–5° high), smooth when full grown, the lanceolate pinnæ pinnatifid into broadly oblong obtuse divisions; fertile fronds separate, appearing earlier from the same rootstock and soon withering (1–2° high), contracted, twice pinnate, covered with the cinnamon-colored sporangia.—Var. frondòsa is a rare occasional state, in which some of the fronds are sterile below and more sparsely fertile at their summit, or rarely in the middle.—Swamps and low copses, everywhere. May.
Order 132. OPHIOGLOSSÀCEÆ. (Adder's-Tongue Family.)
Leafy and often somewhat fleshy plants; the leaves (fronds) simple or branched, often fern-like in appearance, erect in vernation, developed from underground buds formed either inside the base of the old stalk or by the side of it, and bearing in special spikes or panicles rather large subcoriaceous bivalvular sporangia formed from the main tissue of the fruiting branches. Prothallus underground, not green, monœcious.—A small order, separated from Ferns on account of the different nature of the sporangia, the erect vernation, etc.
1. Botrychium. Sporangia in pinnate or compound spikes, distinct. Veins free.
2. Ophioglossum. Sporangia cohering in a simple spike. Veins reticulated.
1. BOTRÝCHIUM, Swartz. Moonwort. ([Pl. 20.])
Rootstock very short, erect, with clustered fleshy roots (which are full of starch, in very minute, irregular granules!); the base of the naked stalk containing the bud for the next year's frond; frond with an anterior fertile and a posterior sterile segment; the former mostly 1–3-pinnate, the contracted divisions bearing a double row of sessile naked sporangia; these are distinct, rather coriaceous, not reticulated, globular, without a ring, and open transversely into two valves. Sterile segment of the frond ternately or pinnately divided or compound; veins all free. Spores copious, sulphur-color. (Name a diminutive of βότρυς, a cluster of grapes, from the appearance of the fructification.)
§ 1. BOTRYCHIUM proper. Base of the stalk containing the bud completely closed; sterile segment more or less fleshy; the cells of the epidermis straight.
[*] Sterile portion of the frond sessile or nearly so at or above the middle of the plant. Plants small.