| GROUP V | FERTILE AND STERILE FRONDS LEAF-LIKE AND SIMILAR; |
the shelves of shaded rocks, again climbing exposed hill-sides, where its fresh beauty is always a surprise.
The fronds of the Ebony Spleenwort usually face the sun, even if so doing necessitates the twisting of its stalk.
29. MAIDENHAIR SPLEENWORT
Asflenium Trichomanes
Almost throughout North America. A small rock fern, four to twelve inches long, with purplish - brown and shining, thread-like stalks.
Fronds.—Linear in outline, somewhat rigid, once-pinnate; pinnæ roundish or oval, unequal-sided, attached to rachis by a narrow point, entire or toothed; fruit-dots short, oblong, narrowed at the ends, three to six on each side of the midrib; sporangia dark-brown when ripe; indusium delicate.
Fertile pinnæ
In childhood the delicate little fronds and dark, glistening, thread-like stalks of the Maidenhair Spleenwort seemed to me a token of the mysterious, ecstatic presence of the deeper woods, of woods where dark hemlocks arched across the rock-broken stream, where the spongy ground was carpeted with low, nameless plants with white-veined or shining leaves and coral-like berries, where precious red-cupped mosses covered the fallen tree-trunks and strange birds sang unknown songs.
Perhaps because in those days it was a rare plant
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