In the east it is often dwarfedsix to ten inches high, growing in tufts with stout rootstocks, having the pinnules finely toothed instead of rounded and the indusia often lunate, rarely twice as long as broad.

A frequent method is by perennial rootstocks, which often creep beneath the surface, sending up, it may be, single fronds, as in the common bracken, or graceful leaf-crowns, as in the cinnamon fern.

The sensitive fern has a running rootstock, scattered fronds, and netted veins; while the ostrich fern has an upright rootstock, fronds in crowns, and free veins.

Nephròdium Fìlix-mas Fronds lanceolate, pinnate, one to three feet high growing in a crown from a shaggy rootstock.

The term maidenhair may have been suggested by the black, wiry roots growing from the slender rootstock, or by the dark, polished stems, or, as Clute explains it, "because the black roots, like hair, were supposed, according to the 'doctrine of signatures' to be good for falling hair, and the plant was actually used in the 'syrup of capillaire'[A] (Am. Botanist, November, 1921).

A thick, short rootstock provided with buds, like the potato, is called a tuber.

Athyrium angustum] Rootstocks horizontal, quite concealed by the thick, fleshy bases of old fronds.

The sensitive fern has a running rootstock, scattered fronds, and netted veins; while the ostrich fern has an upright rootstock, fronds in crowns, and free veins.