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The structure and life-history of the hay-scented fern (1908)
The structure and lifehistory of the hayscented fern - 1908 Author:Henry Shoemaker Conard Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SPOROPHYTE. The hay-scented fern occurs generally in open woods (fig. l) or clearings or on roadside banks. It prefers well-drained, stony or sandy soil, and ... more »usually forms thick beds. In the Catskill Mountains of New York and in New England it grows on the cleared hillsides in dense patches 8 to 15 m. in diameter. Its range is from New Brunswick to Alabama and Minnesota (Britton and Brown, 1896, 1 :12). The leaves are from 50 to 90 cm. high, lanceolate, and thrice pinnatifid. A light-green color and dense pubescence combine to give the fern a soft, feathery appearance. The glandular hairs exhale a delicate fragrance when brushed, which has been likened to new-mown hay; hence the common name. The stems are found 5 to 15 cm. beneath the surface of the soil—long, slender, much-branching rhizomes (fig. 3). These spread rapidly from year to year, and give rise to the densely matted beds of the fern. Roots of threadlike fineness arise plentifully from all parts of the rhizomes and ramify through the soil. THE ROOT. The roots arc numerous, cylindrical, with copious, two-ranked branching. They extend more horizontally than vertically in the soil, and do not descend below 20 cm. from the surface. The color is black in mature portions, shading in the younger parts through reddish-brown and brownish-yellow to creamy white at the apex. Although but 0.5 mm. in diameter (maximum 0.545 mm.; minimum 0.49 mm.; average 0.523 mm.), they are tough and wiry in texture. The rootlets (secondary roots) are about half as thick as the main roots. Tertiary roots, similar to the secondary, frequently occur. Only rarely does a root arise from the base of a leaf, and then it is usually within 4 mm. of the center of the rhizome. Table 1.—Acropetal development of roots from stem. Length of root.DI...« less