NOTABLE FERN FAMILIES
PHEGOPTERIS (Beech Ferns)
Medium-sized or small ferns, with 2–3 pinnatifid or ternate leaves, and small, round, uncovered fruit-dots; sporangia as above.
WOODWARDIA (Chain Ferns)
Large and rather coarse ferns of swamps or wet woods, fronds pinnate or nearly twice-pinnate; fruit-dots oblong or linear, sunk in cavities of the leaf and arranged in chain-like rows; indusium lid-like, somewhat leathery, fixed by its outer margin to a veinlet; veins more or less reticulated; sporangia as above.
ASPLENIUM (Spleenworts)
Large or small ferns, with varying fronds and linear or oblong fruit-dots; indusium straight or curved; sporangia as above.
PELLÆA (Cliff Brakes)
Small or medium-sized rock ferns, with pinnate fronds and sporangia borne beneath the reflexed margins of the pinnæ; sporangia as above.
BOTRYCHIUM (Moonworts)
(Belonging to the Fern Allies)
Fleshy plants, with fronds (usually solitary) divided into a sterile and a fertile portion, the bud for the succeeding year embedded in the base of the stem.
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