504 CRYPTOGAMIA— FILICES. Pteris. 



Struthiopteris. Cord. Hist. 170. 2. f. 



S.n. 1687. Hall. Hist. V. 3. 6. 



Lonchitis aspera. Raii Syn. 118. Ger. Em. 1 140. /. 



L. aspera minor. Matlh. Falgr. v. 2. 274./. Comer. Epit. 665./. 



L. altera, folio polypodii. Bauh. Hist. v. 3. p. 2. 736./. 737. 



L. vulgatior, folio vario. Moris, t'. 3. 569. sect. \4.t.2./ 23. 



Asplenon sylvestre. Trag, Hist. 550./. Dalech. Hist. \216./. 



In rough heathy or stony ground, or in moist shady hedge bottoms. 



Perennial. July. 



Root black and scaly, tufted, with many stout fibres. Fronds 

 numerous, tufted, stalked, erect, straight, lanceolate, tapering 

 at each end, smooth, deep green, a foot or more in height j 

 the barren ones of numerous, close, parallel, lanceolate, entire, 

 single-ribbed leaflets, bluntish with a minute point, their base 

 scarcely at all dilated, or auricled ; fertile ones interior, or cen- 

 tral, not quite so numerous, but taller, of much narrower, 

 rather more distant, more acute leaflets, dilated at the base. 

 Masses in continuous, solitary, lines, close to each partial 

 midrib, at each side. Cover at a small distance from the mar- 

 gin, uninterrupted, linear, wavy, separating after a while at 

 the side next the rib, and disclosing the innumerable crowded 

 brown capsules, each bound with a jointed ring. 



Haller justly observed this could be no Osmunda. It is wonderful 

 Linnaeus, who founded the very natural well-marked genus 

 Blechnum, never discovered that this Fern belonged to it; a fact 

 first published in the Turin Memoirs above quoted. 



469. PTERIS. Female-fern, or Brakes. 



Linn. Gen.559. Juss. 15. Fl. Br. 1 136. Act. faiirin. v. 5. 412. 



Traces 241. Sw.Syn.Fil.9A. Willd. Sp.Pl. v. 5. 355. Lam.t.869. 



Spreng. Crypt./. 26. 

 Filix. Hall. Hist. v. 3. 7. 



Nat. Ord. see w. 463. 



Masses of capsules linear, uninterrupted, parallel to, and 

 near, the margin, at the back of each segment of the 

 fertile fro7ids. Cover from the inflexed margin of the 

 frond, membranous, continuous, uninterrupted, wavy, 

 sometimes fringed, separating at its inner edge, towards 

 the rib. Capsules numerous, stalked, globose, of 2 

 valves, bound by a transverse jointed ring. Seeds nu- 

 merous, minute, slightly angular. 



Root somewhat creeping. Fronds erect, mostly compound; 

 in some foreign species simply pinnate; ixx a few undi- 

 vided ; segments of the barren ones broadest, and often 

 crenate. In our first and most common species a mem- 



