(3) Dense Cliff Brake
Cryptográmma Densa. Pellaèa Densa
Modern botanists are inclined to place the dense cliff brake and the slender cliff brake under the genus Cryptográmma, which is so nearly like Pellaea that one hesitates to choose between them. The word Cryptográmma means in Greek a hidden line, alluding to the line of sporangia hidden beneath the reflexed margin.
The dense cliff brake may be described as follows:
Stipes three to nine inches tall, blades one to three inches, triangular-ovate, pinnate at the summit, and tripinnate below. Segments linear, sharp-pointed, mostly fertile, having the margins entire and recurved, giving the sori the appearance of half-open pods. Sterile fronds sharply serrate. Stipes in dense tufts (“densa”) slender, wiry, light-brown.
This rare little fern is a northern species and springs from tiny crevices in rocks, preferring limestone. Like many other rock-loving species, it produces spores in abundance, having no other effective means of spreading, and its fertile fronds are much more numerous than the sterile ones, and begin to fruit when very small. Gaspé and Mt. Albert in the Province of Quebec, Grey County, Ontario, and in the far west.