This plant ranks with the Osmundas and with the Ostrich Fern in size and vigorous beauty. Its retiring habits give it a reputation for rarity or at least for exclusiveness.
PLATE XXXII
EVERGREEN WOOD FERN
a Tip of fertile pinna
b Magnified fruit-dot, showing indusium and sporangia
45. EVERGREEN WOOD FERN. MARGINAL SHIELD FERN
Aspidium marginale (Dryopteris marginalis)
Canada to Alabama, in rocky woods. A few inches to three feet high, with more or less chaffy stalks having shining scales.
Fronds.—Ovate-oblong, smooth, thick, somewhat leathery, once or twice-pinnate; pinnæ lance-shaped or triangular-ovate, tapering at the end, cut into pinnules; pinnules oblong, entire, or toothed; fruit-dots large, round, close to the margin; indusium large, convex, persistent.