GROUP V
FERTILE AND STERILE FRONDS LEAF-LIKE AND SIMILAR; SPORANGIA IN LINEAR OR OBLONG FRUIT-DOTS
24. LADY FERN
Asplenium Filix-faemina
A wood and roadside fern, growing in all parts of the country and presenting many varying forms. One to three feet high, with tufted, straw-colored, reddish, or brownish stalks.
Fronds.—Broadly lance-shaped, tapering toward the apex, twice-pinnate; pinnce lance-shaped; pinnules oblong-lanceolate, toothed or incised; fruit-dots short, curved; indusium delicate, curved, sometimes shaped like a horseshoe.
The Lady Fern is found in all parts of the country. Sometimes it forms a part of the tangle of wild, graceful things which grow close to the roadside fence. Again, in company with the Silvery Spleenwort, the Evergreen Wood Fern and the Spinulose Shield Fern, forming perhaps a background for the brilliant scarlet clusters of the wild bergamot, it fringes the banks of some amber-colored brook which surprises us with its swift, noiseless flow as we stroll through the woods.
The earliest fronds uncurl in May. In June the
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