Cheilánthes Féei, C. lanuginòsa
Stipes densely tufted, slender, at first hairy, dark brown, shining. Fronds three to eight inches long, ovate-lanceolate, with thickish, distinctly articulated hairs, twice or thrice pinnate. Pinnæ ovate, the lowest deltoid. Pinnules divided into minute, densely crowded segments, the herbaceous margin recurved and forming an almost continuous indusium.
[Illustration: Slender Lip Fern]
The slender lip fern, known also as Fée's fern, is much the smallest of the lip ferns, averaging, Clute tells us, "but two inches high." This is only one-third as tall as the woolly lip fern and need not be mistaken for it. The fronds form tangled mats difficult to unravel. It grows on dry rocks and cliffs--Illinois and Minnesota to British Columbia, and south to Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.
[Illustration: Pinnæ of Slender Lip Fern. Cheilanthes Féei (From Waters's "Ferns," Henry Holt & Co.)]
[5. CLOAK FERN. Notholàena]
Small ferns with fruit-dots borne beneath the revolute margin of the pinnules, at first roundish, but soon confluent into a narrow band without indusium. Veins free. Fronds one to several times pinnate, the lower surface hairy, or tomentose or powdery. Includes about forty species, mostly American, but only one within our limits. (Greek name means spurious cloak, alluding to the rudimentary or counterfeit indusium.)