How to know the ferns

by Frances Theodora Parsons

31. SCOTT'S SPLEENWORT

Asplenium ebenoides

Connecticut to the Mississippi and southward to Alabama, on limestone. Four to twelve inches long, with blackish and shining stalks.

Fronds.—Lanceolate, tapering to a long, narrow apex, generally pinnate below, pinnatifid above; fruit-dots straight or slightly curved; indusium narrow.

PLATE XXI
SCOTT'S SPLEENWORT

The known stations of this curious little plant are usually in the immediate neighborhood of the Walking Leaf and the Ebony Spleenwort, of which ferns it is supposed to be a hybrid. The long, narrow apex occasionally forming a new plant, and the irregular fruit-dots remind one of the Walking Leaf, while the lustrous black stalk, the free veins, and the pinnate portions of the fronds suggest the Ebony Spleenwort.