| GROUP VI | FERTILE AND STERILE FRONDS LEAF-LIKE |
and affects us somewhat as the sight of them might do."
Long Beech Fern
49. LONG BEECH FERN
Phegopteris polypodioides (P. Phegopteris)
Newfoundland to Alaska, south to mountains of Virginia, wet woods and hill-sides. Six or eight inches to more than a foot high.
Fronds.—Triangular, usually longer than broad (4–9 inches long, 3–6 inches broad), downy, especially beneath, thin, once-pinnate; pinnæ lance-shaped, the lower pair noticeably standing forward and deflexed, cut into oblong, obtuse segments; fruit-dots small, round, near the margin; indusium, none.
Of the three species of Phegopteris native to the northeastern States P. polypodioides, commonly called the Long Beech Fern, is the one I happen to have encountered oftenest.
It is a less delicate plant than either of its sisters, the effect of the larger and older specimens being rather hardy, yet its downy, often light-green, triangular frond is exceedingly pretty, with a certain oddity of aspect which it owes to the
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