Swampy places, often in deep water, from Maine to Florida. Two to more than three feet high.
Fronds.—Once-pinnate; pinnæ pinnatifid, with oblong segments; fruit-dots oblong, in chain-like rows along the midrib both of the pinnæ and of the lobes, confluent when ripe; indusium fixed by its outer margin, opening on the side next the midrib.
Emerging from the shade and silence of a little wood upon the rolling downs where one has glimpses of the blue bay, our attention is attracted by a tall fern beside the path, growing among a tangle of shrubs and vines. It does not grow in symmetrical crowns or tufts like an Osmunda, but its fronds are almost as handsome, the divisions being wider apart and more scattered. Turning over two or three of the rather glossy fronds, we find a rusty-backed, fertile frond, covered on one side with the regular chain-like rows of fruit-dots which make its name of Chain Fern seem very appropriate and descriptive.
PLATE XXIV
UPPER PART OF FROND OF VIRGINIA CHAIN FERN
a Portion of fertile pinna
b Tip of fertile pinna
In the low, damp ground near the coast one may expect to find this fern; its haunts, where the narrow path winds between tall masses of sweet-pepper bush and wet meadows where pogonia and calopogon delight us in July, and the white-fringed orchids may be found in later summer, are among the most beautiful of the many beautiful kinds of country that the fern and flower lover knows, to which his feet stray inevitably in the season of green things, and which are the solace of his "inward eye" when that season is past.