(3) Silvery Spleenwort. Athýrium Acrostichòides
Asplènium Acrostichòides. Asplènium Thelypteròides
Fronds two to four feet tall, pinnate, tapering both ways from the middle. Pinnæ deeply pinnatifid, linear-lanceolate, acuminate. Lobes oblong, obtuse, minutely toothed, each bearing two rows of oblong or linear fruit-dots. Indusium silvery when young.
The sterile fronds come up first and the taller, fertile ones do not appear until late in June. Where there are no fruit-dots the hairs on the upper surface of the fronds will help to distinguish it from specimens of the Marsh fern tribe, which it somewhat resembles. The regular rows of nearly straight, clear-cut sori of the fertile fronds are very attractive, and the lower ones, as well as those at the slender tips of the pinnæ, are frequently double.
Rich woods and moist, shady banks, New England to Kentucky and westward. Generally distributed but hardly common.