The wings of the stalk widen out into a wedge-shaped base, which is sunken in a sinus between two basal auricles of the frond. These auricles are scantily developed in small fronds; but in larger ones they are more or less prominent, making the base of the frond either cordate or hastate. In specimens from Cheshire, Connecticut, and in some from Indiana, the auricles are drawn out into slender points, in one instance fully four inches long. The fronds are deep-green in color, and sub-coriaceous in texture. The fronds of mature plants are from six to twelve, or even fifteen, inches long; and their greatest width, measured just above the auricles, is about one-twelfth of the length, or from six to fifteen lines. The midrib is a little paler than the rest of the frond, and is rather prominent on the under surface. The margin of the frond is gently undulating or entire, rarely incised.[2] The upper part of the frond is scarcely wider than the stalk, and commonly produces a proliferous bud at the apex, where it very frequently takes root, and develops a new plant. In this way a single plant in a favorable position will become a whole colony in a few years’ time.
The venation is peculiar, and the disposition of the sori depends mainly on the peculiarities of the venation. Dr. Endlicher’s description of them is so clear, that it is well to repeat it here: “Veins anastomosing [i.e., reticulating] in two series of hexagonal areoles [meshes], the angles of the marginal areoles sending out free, simple or forked, veinlets. Sori linear, solitary in the costal areoles [those nearest the midrib] and on the marginal veinlets: the indusium of the latter free toward the margin of the frond; of the former, toward the costa. In the areoles of the second series the sori are opposite: the indusium of the lower one free toward the costa; of the other, in the opposite direction.” To this it may be added, that in some of the areoles the two sori meet and are confluent at the outer angle of the areole; and in this case the two indusia are sometimes, though not always, united into one. The indusia of the areoles next the midrib are also often bent at an angle, and the two portions plainly united. It was from this condition of some of the sori that the genus was named Camptosorus (bent fruit-dot); and it is only on this peculiarity that the genus can be kept separate.
The indusium is thin and delicate, composed of sinuous-margined cellules, and is more or less wavy along the free edge. The spores are ovoid, and have a crenated pellucid wing-like margin.
Sir W. J. Hooker referred the Camptosorus, together with the species of Antigramma, and the very peculiar Mexican fern Schaffneria, to the genus Scolopendrium; making the distinctive character of the genus to rest on the sori being “in pairs, opposite to each other, one originating on the superior side of a veinlet, the other on the inferior side of the opposite veinlet or branch.” In this he was essentially anticipated twenty years by Dr. Endlicher; to whom, however, Schaffneria was unknown.
It is by no means impossible that future botanists will refer all these species to the old Linnæan genus Asplenium; for it is now pretty generally admitted that differences in venation do not constitute valid generic distinctions, and a radicant bud on the frond is common in many undeniably genuine Asplenia: and since Diplazium, with double involucres placed back to back on the same vein, is inseparable from Asplenium, it is by no means impossible that Scolopendrium and Camptosorus should be thought to have no better claim to rank as genera.
Probably the earliest notice of the walking-leaf is in Ray’s “Historia Plantarum,” vol. ii., p. 1927, published in 1688. It is there called “Phyllitis parva saxatilis per summitates folii prolifera.” Other early accounts may be found in the “Species Plantarum” of Linnæus and of Willdenow, and in the second edition of Gronovius’s “Flora Virginica.” In the latter work it may be seen that Gov. Colden long ago described the auricles as being “also often acuminate.”
A second species, with membranaceous fronds acute at the base (C. Sibiricus), occurs in Northern Asia, but is apparently very rare.
ASPLENIUM PINNATIFIDUM, Nuttall.
Pinnatifid Spleenwort.
Asplenium pinnatifidum:—Root-stock short, creeping, branched; stalks numerous, clustered, brownish near the base, green higher up; fronds six to nine inches high, herbaceous or sub-coriaceous, mostly erect, lanceolate-acuminate from a broad and sub-hastate base, pinnatifid; lower lobes roundish-ovate or rarely caudate, sometimes distinct, the margin crenated, the upper ones gradually smaller and more and more adnate to the winged midrib; the uppermost very short, and passing into the sinuous-margined long acumination of the frond; veins dichotomous or sub-pinnate and forking, free; sori few on the lower lobes, solitary on the uppermost, those next the midrib occasionally diplazioid.
Asplenium pinnatifidum, Nuttall, Genera of N. Amer. Plants, ii., p. 251.—Kunze, in Sill. Journ., July, 1848, p. 85.—Gray, Manual.—Eaton, in Chapman’s Flora of Southern U. S., p. 592.—Hooker, Icones Plantarum, t. 927; Sp. Fil., iii., p. 91.—Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 72, t. 10, figs. 1, 2; Asplenium, p. 126.—Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 194.