Page:Parsons How to Know the Ferns 7th ed.djvu/160

GROUP V

FERTILE AND STERILE FRONDS LEAF-LIKE AND SIMILAR; SPORANGIA IN LINEAR OR OBLONG FRUIT-DOTS

and have secured a hold that enables you to stand up and examine at leisure the suspicious patches, your heart bounds with delight as you get a near view of the fringe of blue-green, leathery fronds which flatten themselves against the gray cliffs.

Mountain SpleenwortApparently only the plants that grow under specially favorable conditions are able to develop fronds that attain a length of five or six inches. Only in what must have been almost constant shadow, under the shelving rocks, directly above the lake and refreshed always by its moisture, did I find these really

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