FERN TRIBE 133 
at the margin. Both the principal stalk of the frond, and the partial stalk 
of each branch, have a narrow leafy wing throughout their length. This 
forms a distinctive feature of the fern. 
The texture of this fern is too substantial to allow the veining to be very 
apparent. The chief vein of each pinnule sends out a branch towards each 
lobe or serrature, and in the larger pinnules some of these lateral veins 
become forked, a vein running into each lobe or notch. An oblong cluster 
of capsules is seated on two or more of these veins, and covered with an 
indusium of a similar form, waved and indented at the edge. The clusters 
are rarely distinct, but generally form a brown mass on the under surface of 
the pinnules. 
4. Wall-rue Spleenwort, or White Maiden Hair (4. riita- 
murdria).—Fronds twice pinnate ; pinnules lobed, or bluntly-toothed. This 
is a plant often seen and easily recognised. It is a common fern in Scot- 
land, Wales, and Ireland, and is generally distributed throughout England, 
though less common in the eastern counties than elsewhere. Its native 
haunt seems to be the rocky hills, where its little fronds cluster above the 
fissures of the stone; but the wind scatters its dust-lke spores, and they 
find a congenial soil on the stone pinnacle or tower of the ancient church, or 
on broken archway or brick wall, where we may often find them with their 
companions the green pellitory, or the golden wall-flower. The plant seems 
to love the haunts of man, for it is far less frequently found on the wild 
rock than on the walls which his hands have reared. It grows, however, in 
luxuriance on the fissures of the rocks about the Peak in Derbyshire, and is 
abundant on the craggy hills of Arthur’s Seat, in Edinburgh. Its fronds, 
which are thick and leathery, appear in May and June, and by September 
are thickened by the dark brown mass of fructification beneath. The form 
of the plant would at once recall to memory that of the common garden 
rue. The frond is usually triangular, the stalk of a dark purplish-brown 
colour, slender and glossy ; the leafy part occupying rather more than half 
its length. The fronds are most commonly three or four inches long, but, 
when most luxuriant, attain the length of half a foot. They are twice 
pinnate, the pinnules being alternate and pinnate, of a roundish egg-shaped 
form, bluntly wedge-shaped, and on short stalks, and the colour is either 
deep dark green, or sometimes of a sea-green tint. When growing on 
exposed spots, they are covered with sea-green powder. Some of the larger 
fronds are again divided, and their pinnules cut down nearly to the mid-vein, 
the lobes having the usual form of the pinnules. Little tufts of this plant, 
however, may be found in which the fronds are pinnate only, with pinnatifid 
pinne. The pinnules of this fern are like little leaves, each on a stalk, and 
with the upper margin irregularly toothed. 
There is no mid-vein in the pinnules of this fern, but the veins radiate 
from the stalk towards the margin in a fan-shaped direction, and on them 
are borne the narrow lines of the clusters of fructification ; these are at first 
covered by a membranous indusium, the free margin of which is jagged and 
uneven. As the capsules increase in size, the indusium turns back and 
finally disappears. 
This fern is sometimes called Amésium rita-murdria ; and one of its old 
