| GROUP VI | FERTILE AND STERILE FRONDS LEAF-LIKE |
lowest pair of pinnæ, these being conspicuously deflexed and turned forward. This peculiarity gives it a decided individuality and renders it easy of identification.
The Long Beech Fern I have found growing
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| a Portion of pinna | b Tip of pinna |
alternately in company with the Oak Fern and the Broad Beech Fern. It loves the damp woods, clambering over the roots of trees or carpeting thickly the hollows that lie between.
50. BROAD BEECH FERN. HEXAGON BEECH FERN
Phegopteris hexagonoptera
Quebec to Florida, in dry woods and on hill-sides, with talks eight to eighteen inches long.
Fronds.—Triangular, as broad or broader than long, seven to twelve inches broad, thin, slightly hairy, often finely glandular beneath, fragrant, once-pinnate; pinnæ, the large, lowest ones broadest near the middle and cut nearly to the midrib into linear-oblong, obtuse segments, the middle ones lance-shaped, tapering, the upper ones oblong, obtuse, toothed or entire; basal segments of the pinnæ forming a continuous, many-angled wing along the main rachis; fruit-dots round, small, near the margin; indusium, none.
In many ways this plant resembles its sister, the Long Beech Fern, but usually it is a larger plant,
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