| GROUP VI | FERTILE AND STERILE FRONDS LEAF-LIKE |
fronds are shorter and broader in proportion, and not so easily identified.
53. FRAGILE BLADDER FERN. COMMON BLADDER FERN
Cystopteris fragilis
A rock and wood fern, found from Newfoundland to Georgia. Six to eighteen inches long, with slender and brittle stalks, green except at the base.
Fronds.—Oblong-lanceolate, thin, twice to thrice-pinnate or pinnatifid; pinnæ lance-ovate, irregularly cut into toothed segments which at their base run along the midrib by a narrow margin; fruit-dots roundish, often abundant; indusium early withering and exposing the sporangia, which finally appear naked.
This plant may be ranked among the earliest ferns of the year. In May or June, if we climb down to the brook where the columbine flings out her brilliant, nodding blossoms, we find the delicate little fronds, just uncurled, clinging to the steep, moist rocks, or perhaps beyond, in the deeper woods, they nestle among the spreading roots of some great forest tree. Their "fragile greenness" is very winning. As the plant matures, attaining at times a height of nearly two feet, it loses something of this first delicate charm. By the end of July its fruit has ripened, its spores are discharged, and the plant disappears. Frequently, if not always, a new crop springs up in August. We are enchanted to discover tender young fronds making patches of fresh green in every crevice of the rocks among which the stream forces its precipitous way. Once more the woods are flavored with the essence of spring. In our
198
