a Portion of pinna
b Tip of pinna
The Long Beech Fern I have found growing alternately in company with the Oak Fern and the Broad Beech Fern. It loves the damp woods, clambering over the roots of trees or carpeting thickly the hollows that lie between.
50. BROAD BEECH FERN. HEXAGON BEECH FERN
Phegopteris hexagonoptera
Quebec to Florida, in dry woods and on hill-sides, with stalks eight to eighteen inches long.
Fronds.—Triangular, as broad or broader than long, seven to twelve inches broad, thin, slightly hairy, often finely glandular beneath, fragrant, once-pinnate; pinnæ, the large, lowest ones broadest near the middle and cut nearly to the midrib into linear-oblong, obtuse segments, the middle ones lance-shaped, tapering, the upper ones oblong, obtuse, toothed or entire; basal segments of the pinnæ forming a continuous, many-angled wing along the main rachis; fruit-dots round, small, near the margin; indusium, none.
PLATE XXXV
BROAD BEECH FERN
In many ways this plant resembles its sister, the Long Beech Fern, but usually it is a larger plant, with more broadly triangular fronds, which wear, to my mind, a brighter, fresher, more delicate green. In the Long Beech Fern the two lower pairs of pinnæ differ little in length and breadth, while in the Broad Beech Fern the lowest pair are decidedly larger and broader than the next pair. The wing along the rachis formed by the basal segments of the pinnæ seems to me more conspicuous in the latter than in the former.