2 FERNS. 



height of something under a foot. Its general appearance 

 might entitle it to be called the Parsley Shield-Fern, for 

 each pinnule is curled outwards at the edges, giving the 

 whole frond a crimpled appearance. Afterwards J found 

 the same Fern in woods in Cornwall, and there it was 

 more than a foot high. But the most beautiful specimens 

 I ever beheld were in the Isle of Arran ; there the fronds 

 measured two feet and upwards. They were triangular, 

 as in the Spreading species, the upper part of the rachis 

 and the elongated pinnae bending most gracefully. It 

 was growing most luxuriantly at the entrance to some 

 damp caves in the old coast line, to the left of Brodick 

 Bar. 



The Crested Shield-Fern we got from a garden. A 

 sanguine fernist believed to have found this rare plant 

 in the Bedgebury woods, in Kent ; and indeed the narrow 

 erect fronds, with the broader and more distant pinnae, 

 gave the Fern an exact resemblance to the form of the 

 Crested species (L. cristata, Plate II, Jig. 6). But on 

 subjecting the spore-covers to microscopic examination, 

 it was found that their margins were notched, and this 

 peculiarity attaches only to the Spreading and Spiny 

 species, while those of the true cristata have plain margins. 

 So the Fern was proved to be only a very marked variety 

 of dilatata. 



