THE ALTERNATE-LEAVED SPLBENWORT. 



or cuncate. cut into two or throe narrow lobes, the lobes simple or toothed, the apex unequally toothed. 

 the base tapering into a kind of petiole ; in the larger specimens more distinctly stalked, and sometimes 

 decidedly bipinnatc with one distinct cuneato pinnule. The upper pinna are less and less lobod, but 

 unequally toothed at the apex, which is blunt, and they arc falcately curved inwards. The apex of 

 the frond consists of several coalesccnt narrow lobes. 



Venation consisting of from two to four series of furcate divisions of the vein which constitutes the 

 vascular bundle of the footstalk, without a midwiu, a venule extending to each of the teeth, so that the 

 pinnule is occupied by from two to five or six (label lately-forked nearly parallel venules. 



Fructification on the back of the frond occupying all the pinna?. Sori linear elongate, on two or 

 three of the central venules, opening inwardly from each margin, at length confluents Intlwium a 

 thin narrow membrane with the margin entire or somewhat wavy. Spore-cases obliquely obovatc, 

 brown. Spores roughish or muriculate, roundish-oblong. 



Duration, The caudcx is perennial. The plant is evergreen or sub-overgrcen, the fronds being mora 

 or less persistent' 



This plant, though almost invariably kept distinct by writers on Ferns, has often, by the same pen 

 which has so placed it, been marked as a suspicious species, having a supposed relation either to the 

 Wall Hue, or the Forked Splccmvort. Without doubt it stands intermediate between these, but seems 

 to us perfectly distinct. It is a subbipimiate form of the Wall Rue (var. eunadum), only, which 

 resembles it, and that is altogether a thicker and stouter plant, not lobed as this is, and with the apico- 

 marginal teeth much more uniform. The Forked Splccmvort is much more coriaceous and less leafy, 

 its lobes being in truth rather rachiform than foliaceous, and its teeth, when present, very different, 

 being rather of the nature of distant linear fragments split away from the margin, than scrraturcs, 

 which the few teeth of A.yermanicnm more nearly resemble. 



This rare Fern is one which does not thrive under cultivation, except with careful management. If 

 potted in porous soil, with the crown well elevated and covered by a bell-glass in a shaded frame, or put 

 in a warm close house or pit without a bell-glass, it will generally grow with vigour ; but the plants are 

 very liable to perish in winter. The safeguard is, not to allow water to reach their crowns, to keep their 

 roots just moderately moist, and not to suffer the bell-glasses, employed to protect them from the risk 

 of being wetted, to injure them by retaining a constantly damp atmosphere, which they will do if they 

 are kept permanently closed. The plan of using glasses, with a couple of small apertures opposite each 

 other, as vents, near the top, so successfully adopted by Mr. Clowes in cultivating ffffmenophjflltm, would 

 no doubt be found congenial to these difficult mountain Aspleniums. Tho plants may bo increased 

 by dividing the crowns. 



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