road bases, and blunt tips and are slightly stalked.
Stipes and rachis dark brown and the sori short, near the midrib.

A rare and beautiful fern growing on rocks preferring limestone and
confined mostly to the southern states. Newburg, N.Y., to Kentucky and
Alabama, westward to Arkansas.

(8) MOUNTAIN SPLEENWORT. _Asplenium montanum_

Fronds ovate-lanceolate from a broad base, two to eight inches long,
somewhat leathery, pinnate. Pinnae ovate-oblong, the lowest pinnately cleft
into oblong or ovate cut-toothed lobes, the upper ones less and less
divided. Rachis green, broad, and flat.

[Illustration: Mountain Spleenwort (From the "Fern Bulletin")]

Small evergreen ferns of a bluish-green color, growing in the crevices of
rocks and cliffs. Connecticut to Ohio, Kentucky, Arkansas and southwest.
July. Rare. Williams, in his "Ferns of Kentucky," says of this species,
"Common on all sandstone cliffs and specimens are large on sheltered rocks
by the banks of streams."

(9) RUE SPLEENWORT. _Asplenium Ruta-muraria_

Fronds evergreen, small, two to seven inches long, deltoid-ovate, two to
three pinnate below, simply pinnate above, rather leathery in texture.
Divisions few, stalked, from cuneate to roundish-ovate, toothed or incised
at the apex. Veins forking. Rachis and stipe green. Sori few, soon
confluent.

[Illustration: The Rue Spleenwort. _A. Ruta-muraria_ (Top, Lake
Huron--Lower Left, Mt. Toby, Mass.--Lower Right, Vermont) (From Herbarium
of Geo. E. Davenport)]

This tiny fern grows from small fissures in the limestone cliffs, and
is rather rare in this country; but in Great Britain it is very common,
growing everywhere on walls and ruins. From Mt. Toby, Mass., and Willoughby
Mountain, Vt., to Michigan, Missouri, Kentucky and southward.

B. THE LARGE SPLEENWORTS. _Athyrium_

The following species, which are often two to three feet high and grow in
rich soil, are quite different in appearance and habits from the small rock
spleenworts just described. Some botanists have kept them in the genus
_Asplenium_ because their sori are usually rather straight or only slightly
curved, but others are inclined to follow the practice of the British
botanists and put them into a separate group under _Athyrium_. Nearly all
agree that the lady fern, with its variously curved sori, should be placed
here, and many others would place the silvery spleenwort in the same genus,
partly because of its frequently doubled sori. In rega