FERN TRIBE 12, 
and is found, though less frequently, on open or wooded lowland districts. 
On some waste lands, as those of Hampstead Heath, and the heather-clad 
spots about Leith Hill and Tunbridge Wells, its handsome coronals of green 
rise up in May, and, as summer advances, overshadow the harebells and 
tormentillas, and remain green till winter has swept all blossoms save the 
daisy from the greensward. On the hill-sides of the north of England, and 
in the Highlands of Scotland, it is even more frequent than the common 
bracken, and it is plentiful on the hilly districts of Wales, but it is rare in 
Ireland. Mr. Newman remarks of the fronds: “Immediately they begin 
to unroll they exhibit the pinne placed at right angles with the main stem, 
and are not convolute as in the allied ferns—a character worthy of particular 
notice, because unusual among our ferns.” The fronds, which are annual, 
are erect, and in their outline lanceolate and pinnate, remarkably narrowed 
downwards from about the middle, so that the lower part is quite as tapering 
as the upper. The stipes is very short, the leafy portion of the frond 
continuing almost to its base. ‘The pinne are generally opposite, and are 
narrow, pointed, and pinnatifid, and attached only by the mid-rib to the 
main stem. The fructification is very abundant, forming a line close to the 
margin ; and this plant differs from the Marsh Fern in not having the edges 
of the lobes turned back. Over every portion of the under surface lie 
numerous small, round, glossy, bright yellow glands, which give the young 
fronds a golden tinge, and form a marked feature of this fern. If we handle 
or bruise the frond, these diffuse a pleasant odour, similar, however, to that 
which is possessed in a less degree by several other ferns. Some writers 
have, on account of this fragrance, believed this to be the species designated 
by Linneus Polypédium frégrans. ‘The mid-vein is very perceptible in the 
blunt lobes of the pinne. It is slightly winding and alternately branched, 
some of the branches being simple, others forked, and the clusters of fructifi- 
cation are placed at their extremities. The scales are so numerous at the 
lower part of the stipes as to remind one of the pale brown shaggy mane of 
an animal, and they are more or less continued to the upper part. The 
underground stem is scaly, and the roots numerous and tough. 
This fern grows throughout Europe, and is called by various writers 
Nephrodium monténum and Lastréa monténa. 
3. Rigid Fern (L. régida).—Fronds twice-pinnate ; pinnules narrow, 
slightly pinnatifid; lobes serrated, without spinous points to the teeth; 
indusium permanent, fringed with glands. Notwithstanding the rigid 
nature of this species, which renders its green fronds less graceful in 
attitude than some which bow more readily to the winds, yet it is one of 
the most elegantly formed of the genus, and it is clearly marked by the 
beautiful divisions of its frond. It grows erect, rising from a thick under- 
ground stem ; the frond is annual, appearing in May, and dying as soon as 
the early frosts commence. It is usually one or two feet high, and in various 
specimens assumes one of two forms. In the one it is almost triangular ; in 
the other lanceolate. It is twice pinnate, with narrow crowded pinne, and 
pinnules which are blunt and oblong, and cut again into broad rounded 
serrated lobes, without spinous tips. The stalk is short, very full of scales ; 
and, like the last species, this has a pleasant fragrance, arising from the 
