268 CRYPTOGAMIA— FILICES. Polypodium. 



Matlh. Valgr.v. 2. 628, 629./, f. Camer. Epit. 993./. Tillands 



Ic. 79. f. 

 P. primum Matthioli. Dalech. Hist. 1 229./. 

 /S. P. murale, pinnulis serratis. Dill, in Rad Syn. 1 17. 

 P. majus, serrato folio. Barrel. Ic. t. 38. 

 y. P. vulgare, lobis proliferis. Bolt. Fil. 33. t. 2./. 5. b. 

 5. P cambricum. Linn. Sp. PI. 1540. Bull. Fil. t. 2./. 5. a. 

 P. cambrobritannicuni, pinnulis ad niargines laciniatis. Rail 



Sijn.\\7. 

 P. cambiobritannicum, lobis foliorum piofiinde dcntatis. Moris. 



v.3.563.sectA\.t.2.f.8. 

 Filix amplissima, lobis foliorum laciniatis, cambrica. Pluk. Alinag. 



1J3. Phjt. t. 30. f. 1. 



On walls, cottage roofs, shady banks, and trunks of old trees. 



a and /3, very common, y. In a wood near Bingley. Dr. Alexander. 

 At Chepstow, Monmouthshire. S. In many parts of North 

 Wales occasionally, without fructification. Rai/. Mr. Griffith, 

 and Rev. H. Davies, With copious fructification, in a wood by 

 the Dargle, County of Wicklow, Ireland. Mr. J. T. Mackay. 



Perennial. May — October. 



Root creeping horizontally, with numerous, stout, branched f.bres, 

 somewhat woody, twisted, densely clothed with membranous, 

 brown, linear, serrated, taper-pointed, shining scales. Frond from 

 eight to twelve or fourteen inches high, linear-lanceolate, deeply 

 pinnatifid, often nearly to the main rib, with numerous, parallel, 

 slightly distant, linear-oblong, obtuse, flat segments j seldom 

 perfectly entire throughout j often wavy, or serrated, especially 

 about the ends ; in y forked, or partly three-cleft, with acute 

 spreading lobes^ in J doubly pinnatifid, as well as variously tooth- 

 ed and serrated, the segments either obtuse, or taper-pointed, the 

 whole frond elegantly imitating an ostrich feather, whence 

 doubtless originated the name of Polypodiitm plumosum, for 

 which Ray could not account. In Wales this variety has always 

 been found without fructification j but I have two Irish speci- 

 mens, partly almost covered with masses of capsules, like the 

 common kind. These masses are alike in all the varieties, each 

 originating in a naked, depressed, scarcely visible spot, destitute 

 of any cover, gradually becoming an orbicular convex mass, or as- 

 semblage, a line in diameter, consisting of fifty or sixty globular, 

 shining, tawny capsules, which when ripe and dry, burst on 

 the application of moisture to their jointed rings, and scatter in 

 abundance their exquisitely minute seeds. Tournefort, though 

 usually very accurate, denies the existence of a ring in his genus 

 Polypodium, which Adanson copies. The masses, at an advanced 

 period, become crowded and confluent. The common stalk of 

 the frond is, in all the varieties, naked and smooth. 



