Crater Lake seems to be an especially
favorable locality for the bizarre and unusual plant life. Besides the
seven new species that Colville found in this region in 1896, he has
since described another. (In Underw. Nat. Ferns ed. 669, 1900).
This is
a little fern that grows only on the highest pumice slopes. It really is
not a true fern since the fronds are not circinate in the bud, the
sporangia do not have typical fern's annulus, and the spores are formed
within the tissue of the sporophyll. By these characteristics we place
it in the Adder's Tongue Family (Opheoglossaceae) but still for
all practical purposes we may call it a fern.
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