THE BLACK MAIDENHAIR SPLEENWORT. 
3. variegatum (W.). This exceedingly rare and beautiful variety has been found in Yorkshire, and 
also in Gi 
crnsey by Mr. Jackson. It is normal in every respect, except in being striped unsymmotri- 
cally with whit as Mr. Wollaston observes, on 
and is sub-permanent, depending for its variegati 
the mode of culture adopted. Tt is quite different from the usual so-called var 
gations of this species, 
Such are for the most part certainly caused by insect attacks, although one example, found by 
Mr. Silver on Shottisbrook Church, in Berkshire, has the appearance of actual variegation, bein, 
distinctly margined with yellowish-white. As it does not appear, however, to have again been met 
with, we only mention it thus incidentally in this enumeration. 
4. multifidum (Wo). This differ 
having the apex of the frond, and very rarely of the pinn, 
bifurcate or multifid. 
5. fissum (М). A curious form 
a caudate frond ; the pinnules being rather abnormal-looking, 
; Шер С 
and irregularly cut into long linear acute entire segments or lobes, answering to the acute teeth of the 
usual states of the plant; some of the pinnules may bo said to bo palmat 
Iy-laciniate. We have 
received it recently from Miss Hoseason, who gathered it n 
Kingsbridge, in South Devon, and, some 
time since, from the late Mr. Ingpon, who obtained a plant of it from a London hawker. 
6. intermedium (ML). Under this name are included those forms in which large size and laxity of 
habit are coincident with an elo 
tion of the parts, and a thin though firm texture of the fronds, such 
forms having often been wrongly associ 
fed with acutum. From that variety they differ in their more 
elongated and less compound fronds, and in the greater breadth of their ultimate divisions, ‘The pinna 
and the fronds are caudate, but there are no linear segments of the pinmules, It seems to bear about 
the same degree of relation 
the normal state as obtusum, but in an opposite direction, and we 
enumerate it as a variety merely in order to point out the steps by which the more usual state of the 
pproaches the distinet-looking acu 
form. We have received it principally from the West of 
England and the Channel Isles. 
охурћуШит OL). This form in its texture and the acuteness of its divisions has a good deal of 
resemblance to the true acutum, but it recedes from it even more than the last in the outline of the 
frond, which tho all is rather narrow and elongated, with a tendeney to diminution rather than 
enlargement of the lower pinne. The pinng are short, very oblique from the еп 
rgement of the 
basal anterior pinnule, the latter bei 
'g more distinct and distant than the remainder, which become 
a good deal confluent; the teeth are deep, narrow, and conspicuously acute. Some plants were found 
near Dunoon, in Argyleshire, by Mrs. East, of Blackheath, 
8. decompositum (М.ф). This, like acutum, is almost or even quite quadripinnate, and may be briefly 
described as resembling that variety in the form of its fronds and pinn, and even pinnules, but the 
ultimate parts though narrow are blunt as if rounded off, not acute as in that, and the texture is 
reover, although small and comparatively narrow, are not so much 
narrowed as in acutum, and the absence of linear segments, and the bluntness of the few teeth 
which are apparent, readily distinguish this plant from that. We have received it from the Rev 
J. M. Chanter, who found it at Manaton, in Devonshire 
9. acutum (Bory). This, which has been already fully described, differs in its moi 
с subdivided fronds, 
in which the deltoid modo of growth is usually strongly developed, in its thinner and papery texture, 
and in the presence throughout of linear acute segi 
ients and teeth, As to its distinctness, the 
preceding enumeration of varieties or forms occurring in this country s 
s that in comp 
simulated by decomp 
um, in texture by oxyphyllum especially, and by intermedium in a considerable 
degree ; and in the presence of linear segments or teeth, both by aryphyllum, in which the teeth th 
sharp are short, and by Jissum, in which latter the narrow n 
arginal divisio 
is are, perhaps, rather 
abnormal developments of the teeth, than normally narrow divisions of tho pinnules These points of 
resemblance, however, and the occurrence of other foreign intermediate states, have determined us in 
retaining acutum as а variety of A. Adiantum-nigrum. 
