Page:Parsons How to Know the Ferns 7th ed.djvu/224

 with more broadly triangular fronds, which wear, to my mind, a brighter, fresher, more delicate green. In the Long Beech Fern the two lower pairs of pinnæ differ little in length and breadth, while in the Broad Beech Fern the lowest pair are decidedly larger and broader than the next pair. The wing along the rachis formed by the basal segments of the pinnæ seems to me more conspicuous in the latter than in the former.

The range of the Broad Beech Fern extends farther south than does that of its two kinsmen, neither of which are found, I believe, south of Virginia. It seeks also more open and usually drier woods. Its leaves are fragrant.

Williamson says that its fronds are easily decolorized and that they form a "good object for double-staining, a process well known to microscopists."

So far as I remember, my first encounter with the Oak Fern was in a cedar swamp, famous for its growth of showy lady's-slippers. One July day in the hope of finding in flower some of these