Page:Parsons How to Know the Ferns 7th ed.djvu/86

 forms. This is specially liable to occur when some injury has befallen the plant.



Fertile fronds.—Quite unlike the sterile fronds, growing in the centre of the crown formed by the sterile fronds and usually about the same height; erect, with cinnamon-colored spore-cases.

In the form of little croziers, protected from the cold by wrappings of rusty wool, the fertile fronds of the Cinnamon Fern appear everywhere in our swamps and wet woods during the month of May. These fertile fronds, first dark-green, later cinnamon-brown, are quickly followed and encircled by the sterile ones, which grow in a tall, graceful crown. The fertile fronds soon