480 THE FEBN FAMILY. 



Hall. Styal Wood. Moat at Arden Hall, sparingly, and in the old 

 coal-pit shafts on the opposite side of the river. 



Curtis, i. 67 (as Asplenium Scolopendrium) ; E. B. xn. 1150. 

 The most strongly marked of the British ferns ; the long, hroad, hright-green 

 ribbons conspicuous at a distance, and beautifully adorned with large brown sori, 

 proceeding slantwise from near the midrib to the margin. Being evergreen, it 

 may be gathered in perfection in the depth of winter. 



1 5 . Beitt le-fekn — ( Cistopteris fragiUs.) 

 Rocks and old walls, but in the immediate neighbourhood of Man- 

 chester unknown. The nearest locality for the normal form of the 

 plant is the Buxton road, beyond Whaley Bridge. The variety den- 

 tata is plentiful at Seal Bark, Greenfield. (J. P.) A plant of it grew 

 till a few years back on the wall of Rostherne Church. 



E. B. xxiii. 1587 (and E. B. xxiii. 1588, as C. dentata). 



16. Parsley-fekn — {Cryi^togrdmma crispa.) 

 On the high moorlands beyond Bury and Stalybridge, among stones. 

 Plentiful and luxuriant on Fo-edge. 



E. B. xvii. 1160 (as Pteris crispa). 



17. Hard-fekn — [Blechnum boredle.) 



Diy banks in heathy woods and doughs, on steep and stony brows 

 and hedgebanks, and especially on the banks of the ditches and drains 

 on the borders of the mosses, abundant everywhere. Very luxuriant 

 on Hale Moss, and near Liudow Common. 



Curtis, i. l40 (as Osmunda Spicant) ; E. B. xvii. 1159. 



The sterile and fertile fronds of this common but elegant fern are always and 

 very strikingly distinct. The sterile ones are lanceolate and flat, tapering to a 

 point both at the apex and the base, with the pinnules close together; the fertile 

 ones, which occupy the centre of the tuft, are fewer and much taller, with long, 

 slender, and generally much incurved pinnules, that are usually at some little 

 distance apart. 



18. Brake-fekn — {Pteris Aquilina.) 

 In woods and doughs, on hedgebanks and moors, in parks and 

 Avaste places, everywhere, often appropriating to itself the whole sur- 

 face of the ground, and forming, as in Dunham Park, a dense jungle, 



four or five feet high. 



E.B. xxiv. 1079. 



Next to the Osmunda, the largest and tallest of the English ferns, and near 

 Manchester before all in respect of size. It often grows among brambles, heaths, 



