PLATE XXIII
BRADLEY'S SPLEENWORT
a Fertile pinna
34. WALKING FERN. WALKING LEAF
Camptosorus rhizophyllus
Canada to North Carolina and westward, on shaded rocks, preferring limestone. Four to eighteen inches long, with light-green stalks.
Fronds.—Simple, lanceolate, long-tapering toward the apex, usually heart-shaped at base, the apex often rooting and forming a new plant; fruit-dots oblong or linear, irregularly scattered on the lower surface of the frond; indusium thin.
Walking Leaf
To its unusual and suggestive title this plant undoubtedly owes much of the interest which it seems to arouse in the minds of those who do not profess to be fern-lovers. A friend tells me that as a child, eagerly on the lookout for this apparently active little plant, he was so much influenced by its title that he thought it might be advantageous to secure a butterfly-net as an aid in its capture. I find that older people as well are tempted to unwonted energy if promised a glimpse of the Walking Fern. Then, too, the scarcity of the plant in many localities, or, indeed, its entire absence from certain parts of the country, gives it a reputation for rarity which is one of the most certain roads to fame.