PLATE XIX
EBONY SPLEENWORT
The fronds of the Ebony Spleenwort usually face the sun, even if so doing necessitates the twisting of its stalk.
29. MAIDENHAIR SPLEENWORT
Asplenium Trichomanes
Almost throughout North America. A small rock fern, four to twelve inches long, with purplish-brown and shining, thread-like stalks.
Fronds.—Linear in outline, somewhat rigid, once-pinnate; pinnæ roundish or oval, unequal-sided, attached to rachis by a narrow point, entire or toothed; fruit-dots short, oblong, narrowed at the ends, three to six on each side of the midrib; sporangia dark-brown when ripe; indusium delicate.
Fertile pinnæ
In childhood the delicate little fronds and dark, glistening, thread-like stalks of the Maidenhair Spleenwort seemed to me a token of the mysterious, ecstatic presence of the deeper woods, of woods where dark hemlocks arched across the rock-broken stream, where the spongy ground was carpeted with low, nameless plants with white-veined or shining leaves and coral-like berries, where precious red-cupped mosses covered the fallen tree-trunks and strange birds sang unknown songs.
Perhaps because in those days it was a rare plant to be met with on rare occasions, in a spirit of breathless exultation, I almost begrudge finding it now on shaded cliffs close to the highway.