FERN TRIBE 127 
hill. It is a conspicuous plant, its fronds growing in circular clumps, and 
often two feet long. They are at first nearly upright, but when fully grown 
they spread out like a coronal from a thick tufted stem. They are lanceolate 
in form, and when luxuriant are broad, but their outline varies much in different 
situations, and often even in plants of the same tuft. The texture is rigid, 
the stalk usually short, and thickly clothed with membranous scales of a 
rust colour. In April and May the fronds are some of the prettiest of the 
green things of the hedgerow, their pale green scrolls drooping downwards 
in most elegant forms. By midsummer these are fully developed, while, by 
the middle of August, the upper part of the fronds is usually profusely 
crowded with dark masses of fructification, and neither summer’s sun nor 
winter's frost seems to tinge their full dark green hue with a tint of decay. 
They are twice pinnate, their pinne alternate, and again divided into pin- 
uules, which run down closely together, gradually merging into the rachis ; 
or they taper to a crescent-shaped base, and are attached to the rachis by the 
point of the crescent, the upper base being thus extended into an ear-shaped 
lobe, and the lower base shaped as if an arched piece had been cut out of it. 
In young plants the pinne are serrated or pinnatifid, or with one or more 
pinnules distinct. The pinnules have a long spine at their points, and 
smaller spines down the margin, and a few of the lowest are often slightly 
stalked. The veins are branched alternately, not uniting, but free to the 
margin. The clusters of fructification form a line on each side of the mid- 
rib of the pinnules, and on the larger pinnules on each side of the mid-vein 
of the ear-shaped lobes. 
A sub-species of this fern, called P. lobatum, was formerly regarded as an 
entirely distinct species. It is characterized by the more narrow outline of 
the frond, and by being simply pinnate, its pinnez lobed or pinnatifid ; it is 
also of more rigid texture. 
3. Willdenow’s Fern, Angular-lobed Prickly Fern, or Soft 
Prickly Shield Fern (P. angulére).—¥Fronds lax, drooping, lanceolate, 
twice pinnate; pinnules distinctly stalked, bluntish. This beautiful plant, 
gracefully waving to every summer wind, is one of the most elegant of our 
ferns, and happily may be numbered among the common plants of our woods 
and hedges, though it is not so general as the last species, of which it would 
probably be better to regard it as a sub-species. It has a very vigorous 
appearance, is of a deep green hue, and most of the fronds retain their 
greenness even in winter. The stalk, which is about one-fourth of the length 
of the frond, is covered with a thick mass of scales of a rust-red colour. 
The young unfolded plants are, in spring, quite clothed with them, and in 
the older plants they extend more or less throughout the rachis. Large 
circular clumps of this fern attract the eye by their beauty of form and 
attitude, as well as by their large size; for they are occasionally four or five 
feet in height, though more frequently about two. They have not the rigid 
aspect of the last species, but are softer and bending. The form of the frond 
is lanceolate and twice pinnate, the pinne being very numerous, long, and 
tapering in form, distinct, and often distant from each other. The pinnules 
are flat, somewhat crescent-shaped, sometimes blunt, and sometimes acutely 
pointed, some of the lower pinnules having deep lobes so as to be pinnatifid. 
