THE BROAD PRICKLY-TOOTHED BUCKLER FERN. 



The same, still more simplified, occurs in the smaller primary pinnules. The venules all terminate in a 



small club-shaped apex, below the tooth towards which they are directed. 



Fructification on the back of the frond, and occupying the whole under surface. Sort numerous, 



variable in size, distinct, round, indurate ; medial, sub-terminal or terminal, seated on the anterior basal 



venules in the less divided pinnules, and on the lowest anterior branch of the venules in the raoro 



comjiound pinnules; in tho former consequently ranging in two lines, one on each side the niidvciii, 



and much nearer to it than tho margin ; in the latter forming two lines in a similar way along 

 the lobes. 



Indminm reniform, rather large, convex, membranous, fringed around the margin with stalked 

 glands; or sometimes, small. Hat, and indistinctly glandular. Spore-awes numerous, brown, rotundly 

 obovalo. Spores roundish or oblong, angular, muriculatc 



Duration* The caudex is perennial. The fronds are semi-persistent, continuing, under shelter, 

 through tho winter, though decaying at the base of the stipes. The young fronds are produced in 

 Spring, and additional ones uncertainly during the summer. 



Tins is n most variable species, extremely difficult to understand. It is more or less intimately 

 united with two or three kindred species, by means of transition forms, the kindred British plants 

 being L. famkecii on the one hand, and that known as L. &pintdom t on the other. The latter is 

 distinguished by its creeping caudex, the few broad pallid scales of its stipes, and its entire indusium ; 

 the former by its more strictly evergreen habit, by its lacerated scales, its anthoxanthoid fragrance, and 

 by the absence of stalked glands from the margin of its indusium. L.f&nbecii may also be known 

 by the concavity of its pinna* and pinnules; aud even in the decay of its fronds it is peculiar, for 

 whilst £. sptnuhm and L t diUttala decay first near the base of the stipes, so that the fronds 

 fall, while they appear green and fresh upwards, in L. fwjtistcii the stipes continues firm, while 

 the apex of the frond is undergoing decay, the disorganisation in this case going on from above 

 downwards, and not from below upwards. The marks of L. dilatnta r in tho group of which its 

 variations form so largo a proportion, are, its lanceolate entire dark-ccntrcd scales, and its 

 gland-fringed indu&ia. 



The Tansy-leaved Prickly- toothed Buckler Fern — L, dilatata tanacctifoua — is a tripinnate stale 

 of the species, with broad fronds indicating a tendency towards a triangular outline, which is sometimes 

 strongly marked. The fronds are usually large, though there occur plants of but moderate size, in 

 which the peculiarities of the form are fully developed. The sti]>es has the usual entire lanceolate 

 dark-brown abundant scales, marked with a still darker bar down their centre. It is one of the 

 commoner forms of the species, and a variable form, merging gradually into that which we have 

 considered as the type of the species, We are indebted to Professor Fee of Strasburg for a sjicciiiicii of 

 the Polystichmn iawtcetifotmm of Dc Candolle, which has enabled us to identify it with this form of 

 Z. dittfUtta* 



Mr. Tatham's, or the Dwarf Prickly-toothed Buckler Fern— L, dii-atata xaxa— (Pi-ate XXVL,cj>.) 

 differs most obviously from the usual aud commoner forms of the species, in its constantly smaller size ; 

 the extreme length of the fronds, including the stipes, varying from two to four inches in tho smallest 

 forms, to eight or ten inches in the largest forms of the variety. This diminutive size is a |>erinaneiit 

 characteristic, the variety having been observed by Mr. J. Tatluun to grow near Settle, in Yorkshire, for 

 the last twenty years without change, and in company with the ordinary forms of the species three feet 

 in height ; and the Rev, J, M- Chanter has observed the same fact of constancy for a series of years in 

 plants of this variety which occur near Ilfracombe, in Devonshire. Even when freely manured, 

 Mr. Tatham's plant, though growing about fifteen inches high, does not lose the dwarfish aspect of the 

 natural specimens ; and cultivation in a greenhoxisc docs not add to the size of the Devonshire plants. 

 The latter assume some slight variations among themselves. The fronds (of the Settle plants) are of 



