THE COMMON POLYPODY 
This Fern is easily cultivated, if light por 
1, and the rhizomes aro kept on the surface of 
the soil. When unnaturally planted deeply, or in stiff retentive soil, it dwindles and often eventually 
perishes. Mr. Newman, apparently founding his opinion on the circumstance of its being frequently 
met with growing on pollard trees, considers it to be of parasitical habit. This circumstance would, 
however, give it only an epiphytal not a parasitic character; but as it is frequently found, fully as 
Vigorous, growing among porous earth and on sandstone, these are all probably mere accidental condi 
tions, the essential ones being constant moisture more or less in quantity, perfect drainage, and moderate 
shade. It even exists in health naturally with little or none of some of these conditions about it, as 
many an old wall bears evidence. It increases readily by dividing the bı 
шеніне rhizom 
There aro in this species many deviations from the typical form which has been already described; 
but they 
rather of importance to the horticultural enthusiast than to the 
tanist : except in 
as the latter may regard them as evidences of the manner in which, and the extent. to which, common 
species are known to vary; and may hence learn to appreciate rightly the less familiar differences which 
formation of the now 
are found to exist amongst exotie species, 16 is, however, chiefly for the i 
humerous class of Fern cultivators, most of whom take an interest in these variations, that they will 
be enumerated hereinafter under distinguishing appellations. 
Th 
at form of the Common Polypody which differs in the least degree, albeit constantly, from the 
state, has the ends of its lobes gradually tapering off to a narrow point, instead of being nearly 
‘equal in width to the end, and there more or less blunt, A somewhat more diverse form has the points 
of th 
bes acute as in the Inst, but their margins are at the same time deeply notched, the notches 
forming a series of coarse double serraturos. ‘This stato has sometimes a tendency to bifureation at the 
tips of the lobes, and what is more remarkable, the sori are not unusually decidedly oblong, in which 
respect it deviates from the generic type. Another slightly varying form has the ends of some or all of 
the lobes di 
with the divisions divaricate, so that the lobes become more or less manifestly two- 
forked. Occasionally more than two points are developed to cach lobe, and we have thus an indication 
of the nature of the tasselled apices which are common in some other species of Ferns, 
Sometimes the fronds acquire breadth rather than length, assuming a broad 
outline ; and this is occasionally accompanied by various degrees of marginal division in the primary 
lobes, showing a transition towards the moro highly developed bipinnatifid varieties, semilaceram and 
cambricum. "The most simple condition of this abbreviated and widened form, in which the apices аге 
usually acute and the margins finely serrated, and which is almost or quite identical with the N 
American plant called P. virginianum, and nearly so with the Madeira plant called 2. eunariense in 
gardens, is apparently not common in this country, but. has been communicated from near Hereford by 
Dr. Allchin. Tt is when deeply erenato-lobate, that this type of variation approaches the more highly 
devel 
ped or compound forms above alluded to ; this, too, sometimes varies with oblong sori 
The Irish Polypody—P. vousane вюмп.дскпом—{зсе P 
Lare TL), of whieh type there appears to be 
some slight variations, and which, moreover, is not confined to Trelaud—has the 
fronds irregularly bipin- 
natifid, in this respect approaching the Welsh Polyp 
ly ; but the latter is more regularly and univer 
sally bipinnatifid, and is, likewise 
ways barren, whilst the former is more or less fertile. ‘The fronds 
are from a foot to а fi 
and a half long, elongate-ovate, pinnatifid, in the lower part almost pinnate. 
‘The primary lobes are narrow and deeply serrate at the base and apex, deeply pinnatifid about the 
middle; the secondary lobes or lobules are linear, acute or bluntish, serrate 1 
the frond, becoming shorter upwards, Along these lobules the vei 
om the principal midvein 
extend, and become branched, the branch 
dividing into from two to three venules; in the other parts, 
the veins are arranged similarly to those in luxuriant examples of the normal form. ‘The upper half 
of the frond is fertile, and in this t ones 
xtile portion the lobes are searcely subdivided, the upperm 
ır erenato-serrate ; the development of the lobules, and of the sori, are conse 
