By donning its thick coat of wool this species is prepared to grow in the most exposed situations of the arid southwest.  It is said to be the “rarest, tallest and handsomest of the lip ferns.”

Mountains of Virginia and Kentucky to Georgia, and west to Missouri, Texas and Arizona.

(4) SLENDER LIP FERN

Cheilanthes Feei, C. lanuginosa

Stipes densely tufted, slender, at first hairy, dark brown, shining.  Fronds three to eight inches long, ovate-lanceolate, with thickish, distinctly articulated hairs, twice or thrice pinnate.  Pinnae ovate, the lowest deltoid.  Pinnules divided into minute, densely crowded segments, the herbaceous margin recurved and forming an almost continuous indusium.

[Illustration:  Slender Lip Fern]

The slender lip fern, known also as Fee’s fern, is much the smallest of the lip ferns, averaging, Clute tells us, “but two inches high.”  This is only one-third as tall as the woolly lip fern and need not be mistaken for it.  The fronds form tangled mats difficult to unravel.  It grows on dry rocks and cliffs—­Illinois and Minnesota to British Columbia, and south to Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

[Illustration:  Pinnae of Slender Lip Fern. Cheilanthes Feei (From Waters’s “Ferns,” Henry Holt & Co.)]

5.  CLOAK FERN. Notholaena

Small ferns with fruit-dots borne beneath the revolute margin of the pinnules, at first roundish, but soon confluent into a narrow band without indusium.  Veins free.  Fronds one to several times pinnate, the lower surface hairy, or tomentose or powdery.  Includes about forty species, mostly American, but only one within our limits. (Greek name means spurious cloak, alluding to the rudimentary or counterfeit indusium.)

(1) POWDERY CLOAK FERN. Notholaena dealbata

Fronds two to six inches long, triangular-ovate, acute, broadest at the base, tripinnate.  Stalks tufted, wiry, shining, dark brown.  Upper surface of the very small segments green, smooth, the lower densely coated with a pure, white powder; hence, the specific name dealbata, which means whitened.  Sori brown at length; veins free.

There are several species of cloak ferns, but only one within our limits.  The dry, white powder which covers them doubtless is designed to protect them from too rapid evaporation of moisture, as they all inhabit dry and sunny places.  This delicate rock-loving fern is found in the clefts of dry limestone rocks in Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, and southwestward.

THE CHAIN FERNS. Woodwardia

Large and somewhat coarse ferns of swampy woods with pinnate or nearly two-pinnate fronds, and oblong or linear fruit-dots, arranged in one or more chain-like rows, parallel to and near the midribs.  Indusium fixed by its outer margin to a veinlet and opening on the inner side.  In our section there are two species. (Named for Thomas J. Woodward, an English botanist.)