| GROUP VI | FERTILE AND STERILE FRONDS LEAF-LIKE |
46. FRAGRANT SHIELD FERN
Aspidium fragrans (Dryopteris fragrans)
Northern New England to Wisconsin and northward, on rocks. Five to sixteen inches long, with very chaffy stalks having brown, glossy scales.
Fronds.—Lance-shaped, tapering to a point, nearly twice-pinnate, fragrant; pinnæ oblong-lanceolate, pinnatifid; fruit-dots round, large; indusium large and thin.
The Fragrant Shield Fern thrives in a colder climate than that chosen by many of its kinsmen. Though found in the White Mountains, in the Green Mountains (where it climbs to an elevation of four thousand feet), in the Adirondacks, and in other special localities of about the same latitude, yet it is rare till we journey farther north. It loves the crevices of shaded cliffs or mossy rocks, often thriving best in the neighborhood of rushing brooks and waterfalls. Frequently it seems to seek the most inaccessible spots, as if anxious to evade discovery. Mr. J. A. Bates, of Randolph, Vt., writes that he first saw this little plant through a telescope from the piazza of the Summit House on Mount Mansfield on an apparently inaccessible ledge, the only instance in my experience when the fern student has sought this method of observation, suggesting "Ferns Through a Spy-glass" as a companion volume to "Birds Through an Opera-glass." But even the most carefully chosen spots are not safe from invasion, as Mr. Bates tells us, for some unprincipled persons, having felled neighboring trees and constructed a rude lad-
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