38 



BRITISH FERNS, 



full expansion in July, and the seed appears to have reached 

 maturity in September. The fronds are perfectly evergreen ; 

 they continue throughout the winter entirely uninjured by the 

 severest frosts, and linger on till late in the succeeding summer : 

 they are of so rigid and durable a character, that I have often 

 been able to detect the growth of four successive summers still 

 attached to the same rhizoma ; not indeed all of them green and 

 flourishing, but perfectly undecayed ; and it was in this way 

 that I first discovered that the same rhizoma produced fronds of 

 widely diiferent character. 



The general form of the frond may be termed lanceolate, but 

 no general description of its cutting will be applicable to all its 

 varieties. The frond at the head of the pre- 

 ceding page, together w^ith the pinnae (figs, a 

 and b in the annexed cut) represent the 

 variety described in the English Flora, under 

 the name of Aspidium angulare. In culti- 

 vation this variety has become even more 

 light and feathery, as represented at fig. 0, 

 page 37. I do not take the name merely 

 from the description, although that is suf- 

 ficiently accurate, but from a careful examina- 

 tion of the fronds in the Smithian Herbarium, 

 from which the description was undoubtedly 

 compiled. The frond is pinnate ; the pinnae 

 also pinnate ; the pinnulae more or less dis- 

 tant, seldom touching each other, stalked, 

 obscurely ovate, serrated, spiny, and each au- 

 ricled or lobed at the base, the lobe pointing 

 towards the apex of the pinna ; the pinnula 

 nearest the rachis on the upper side of the 

 pinna is always in a greater or less degree 

 superior in size to the rest. Sometimes this 

 pinnula is distinctly divided into lobes. (See 

 figs. j3 y in the annexed cut.) 



The pinna fig. c represents the variety to 

 which Sir J. E. Smith retains the Linnean 

 name of aculeatum, and describes its pinnulae 

 as " pointed, and somewhat crescent-shaped." 

 I selected for cultivation a specimen closely agreeing with that 

 in the Smithian Herbarium, and find it now produces pinnae 

 resembling fig. b. 



