[Illustration: Sori of Marginal Shield Fern]
(1) MARGINAL SHIELD FERN, EVERGREEN WOOD FERN
Aspídium marginàle. THELÝPTERIS MARGINÀLIS
Dryópteris marginàlis. Nephròdium marginàle
Fronds from a few inches to three feet long, ovate-oblong, somewhat leathery, smooth, twice pinnate. Pinnæ lanceolate, acuminate, broadest just above the base. Pinnules oblong, often slightly falcate, entire or toothed. Fruit-dots large, round, close to the margin. Rocky hillsides in rich woods, rather common throughout our area. The heavy rootstock rises slightly above the ground and is clothed at the crown with shaggy, brown scales. Its rising caudex, often creeping for several inches over bare rocks, suggests the habit of a tree fern. In early spring it sends up a graceful circle of large, handsome, bluish-green blades. The stipes are short and densely chaffy. No other wood fern endures the winter so well. The fronds burdened with snow lop over among the withered leaves and continue green until the new ones shoot up in the spring. It is the most valuable of all the wood ferns for cultivation.
(2) THE MALE FERN
Aspídium Fìlix-mas. THELÝPTERIS FÌLIX-MAS
Dryópteris Fìlix-mas. Nephròdium Fìlix-mas
Fronds lanceolate, pinnate, one to three feet high growing in a crown from a shaggy rootstock. Pinnæ lanceolate, tapering from base to apex. Pinnules oblong, obtuse, serrate at the apex, obscurely so at the sides, the basal incisely lobed, distant, the upper confluent. Fruit-dots large, nearer the mid vein than the margin, mostly on the lower half of each fertile segment.
The male fern resembles the marginal shield fern in outline, but the fronds are thinner, are not evergreen, and the sori are near the midvein. Its use in medicine is of long standing. Its rootstock produces the well-known fìlix-mas of the pharmacist. This has tonic and astringent properties, but is mainly prescribed as a vermifuge, which is one of the names given to it. In Europe it is regarded as the typical fern, being oftener mentioned and figured than any other. In rocky woods, Canada, Northfield, Vt., and northwest to the great lakes, also in many parts of the world.