| GROUP V | FERTILE AND STERILE FRONDS LEAF-LIKE AND SIMILAR; |
28. EBONY SPLEENWORT
Asplenium ebeneum (A. platyneuron)
Maine to Florida and westward, on rocks and hill-sides. Nine to eighteen inches high, with blackish and shining stalks.
Fronds.—Upright, narrowly oblanceolate, fertile fronds much the taller, once-pinnate; pinnæ usually alternate, oblong, finely toothed, the base auricled on the upper or on both sides; fruit-dots many, oblong, nearer midvein than margin; indusium silvery till maturity.
The slender fronds of the Ebony Spleenwort hold themselves with a sort of rigid grace which suggests a combination of delicacy and endurance.
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Portion of fertile frond
It is an attractive plant with an elusiveness of habit which serves, perhaps, to increase its charm. Its range is from Maine to Florida and westward; it is said to prefer limestone soil, and my past experience has proved it a fairly common plant, yet so far this summer, in many expeditions in a part of the country rich in limestone, I have found only one specimen, .jpg)
Fertile pinna magnified while last year along the roadsides of Long Island I found its black-stemmed fronds standing erect and slim in crowded ranks under groups of red cedars. In other years it has abounded in localities of a different character, sometimes following its little relative, the Maiden-hair Spleenwort, into moist ravines or along
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