46 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



GENUS F//.-PHEGOPTERIS. Fee. 



Fronds produced from the extremity of the caudex and its branches, 

 solitary or approximate, membranous, once or more times pinnate ; 

 stipes not articulated to the caudex. Yeins forked or pinnate, free. 

 Sori punctiform, round, rarely oval or linear, at the extremity of the 

 ultimate veins or attached to some portion of their back. Indusium 

 absent. 



Name from ^yos (jphegos) a Beech, and irre/us (pteris) a Fern. The Beech-fern is the 

 type of the genus. 



SPECIES I. PHEGOPTERIS DRYOPTERIS. Fee. 



Plate 1845. 



Babenh. Crypt. Vase. Exsicc. No. 57. 



Polypodium Dryopteris, Linn. Spec. Plant. 1555. Sm. Engl. Bot. No. 616, and Brit. 



Fl. Vol. IV. p. 282. Bab. Man. Brit. Bot. ed. vii. p. 445. Hook. fil. Stud. Fl. 



p. 467. Moore, Nat. Print. Brit. Ferns, 8vo. ed. Vol. I. p. 85. Koch, Syn. Fl. 



Germ, et Helv. ed. ii. p. 974. Fries, Summ. Veg. Scand. p. 82. 

 Polypodium Dryopteris, var. a. genuinum, Ledeb. Fl. Boss. Vol. IV. p. 509. Gren. & 



Godr. Fl. de Fr. Vol. III. p. 628. Hook. & Baker, Syn. Fil. ed. ii. p. 309. 

 Lastrea Dryopteris, Bory. Newm. Brit. Ferns, ed. ii. p. 13. 

 Gymnocarpium Dryopteris, Newm. Phytol. 1851, p. 371, and App. xxiv. ; and Brit. Ferns, 



ed. iii. p. 57. 



Caudex elongate, very slender, wiry, creeping, branched, not 

 tortuous, not tomentose, the younger portions clothed with ovate 

 scales, producing fronds at rather distant intervals. Fronds all 

 similar. Stipes erect, almost filiform, much longer than the lamina, 

 glabrous, at first with a few ovate or lanceolate often piliferous pale 

 scales, ultimately naked. Lamina suddenly bent back at nearly a 

 right-angle with the stipes, so as to appear almost horizontal when 

 growing, bright pea-green, membranous, rather flaccid, glabrous 

 and without glands, deltoid, acute, ternately bi- or tripinnate, with 

 the three main divisions of which the frond is composed each rolled 

 up into a separate ball in vernation ; ultimate pinnules or segments 

 flat, oblong, obtuse, crenate-serrate or entire. Sori round, arranged 

 in a line near the margin on each side of the pinnules or ultimate 

 segments, attached to the lateral veins a little below their apex. 



On rocks and amongst stones, chiefly in ravines, and on the ground 

 in damp woods. In the south of England it is very rare, and pro- 

 bably in some of its reported stations P. Robertianum has been mis- 

 taken for it. There is, however, good authority for its occurrence in 



