THE MARSH FERN 
Frond from six or eight inches to four feet in height, including the slápes, and from about four to 
the barren with seemingly broader leafy 
branaccous, erect, pinnate ; lateral and adherent to the caudex dis 
segments, the fertile with their segments apparently narrower and more 
næ numerous, sub-opposite or alternate, spreading, linear 
the margin over or towards the sori. 
lanceolate, deeply pinnatitid. Segme g obtuse, or 
or slightly sinuate ; the basal ones often longer than, and especially those on the anterior side quite 
distinct from, the rest. The fertile fronds differ in having the margins of their segments revolute, and 
in being taller, with a stouter stipe 
Venation of the lobes consisting of a stout midvein, flexuous in the upper part, from which proceed 
alternate once or twice forked reins, the venules or eeinlets running out to the margin. ‘The veins are 
forked very soon after leaving the midvein. 
surface. Sori small, round, situated 
Feuctifcation ow the back of tho frond, occupying the w 
near the base of the venules, 1. ¢, just above the fork of the vein, and forming a line on each side the 
midvein, and about equally distant from it and the margin, though apparently marginal from the invo- 
lution of the edge of the frond ; they are at first distinct, but often become laterally confluent, and 
gins, Indusium a small 
sometimes effused over the whole of the small space between the rolled-up mat 
delicate roundish membrane, att lacerate and glandular at the margin. Spore-eases 
ched posteriorly 
numerous, brown, obovate. Spores oblong or reniform, strongly murieate 
Duration. "The caudex is perennial. The fronds are annual, the barren ones growing up 
the fertile in July, all destroyed by the frosts of autumn. 
‘This plant may be di 
inguished from the other Zastrras by its habit alone, its long, comparatively 
slender, creeping caudex being unl 
ко that of any of the other British species ; but notwithstanding this, 
and the fact that its fronds are really quite unlike t п con- 
f L. Oreopteris, the species has b 
founded with that plant. It differs from it in having a long creeping caudex, whilst Z. Oreopteris is 
tufted, and merely decumbent ; in having its fronds of their full width almost to the very base, with a 
lor 
s, whilst Z. Orenptorie has diminishin 
pinnas carried down almost to the base of the 
stipes; and in having fronds which are alm 
4 free fron 
glands, whilst those of 12. Orropteris are very 
conspicuously resinose-glandular on the under surface, and very fragrant. Te is stil less like any others 
of the British Lastreas 
Lastrea Thelypteris is easily cultivated. It merely requires a light boggy kind of soil, and abund: 
ture. Out of do 
з it should therefore have a damp border, or should be placed in some wettish 
plac 
be large and shallo 
out the fernery. In pots, it must have а very abundant supp 
of water ; and the pots should 
mixed with a proport 
of decaying leaves and light sandy loa 
will be congenial to it. Tt is inerensed 
