48 



BRITISH FERNS. 



North Wales. In the midland, and even southern counties of 

 England, it is met with, but not in abundance. 



It has numerous, strong, tough, and 

 penetrating roots, which spread in 

 every direction from a large, scaly, 

 and nearly spherical rhizoma, which 

 yearly increases in magnitude. In 

 favourable situations, this is capable 

 of sending forth thirty, forty, or even 

 fifty fronds, which spread with but 

 little regularity round a common 

 centre. Immediately these begin to 

 unroll, they exhibit the pinnae placed 

 at right angles with the rachis, as 

 represented in the vignette in the 

 next page, a character particularly 

 worthy of notice, because very unusual 

 amongst our ferns. The fronds, when 

 fully expanded, are very variable in 

 size, dependant in a great measure on 

 the age of the plant. An extraordinary 

 number of the seedlings of this plant 

 are occasionally to be met wdth. For 

 two or three years they bear little or no 

 fruit, but after the third year fructifi- 

 cation appears in abundance, and from 

 that period all the fronds are fertile. 

 Ray thought the seedling of this plant 

 a distinct species, and Sir J. E. Smith 

 has recorded it as a variety. 



In the figure of the frond there is 

 little or no variation ; it is elongate, 

 lance-shaped, regularly pinnate, acute 

 at the apex, and gradually diminished 

 from about two-thirds of its length to 

 the very base, the lower pinnae being 

 so remarkably short, that this character 

 alone is sufficient to distinguish it from 

 all our other ferns. There is but a very small portion of the 

 rachis bare, and this is covered with scales. The pinnae are 

 linear, and acute at the apex, rather distant, deeply pinnatifid, 





