FILICES. 53 



tall. Stipes usually shorter than the lamina. Lamina bright green, 

 membranous, oblong or ovate-oblong, acuminated, abrupt at the base, 

 very shortly stalked, deeply pinnatifid ; first pair of pinnae elongate, 

 but a little shorter than the succeeding pair ; ultimate segments 

 oblong, sometimes slightly falcate, obtuse or subacute, entire or 

 repand, flat. Ultimate veins mostly once forked, but the basal ones 

 sometimes branched below the fork, and the terminal ones simple. 



In bogs and marshes. Local, but widely distributed in England, 

 from Devon, Dorset, Hants, Sussex, and Kent, to Northumberland 

 and Cumberland. In Scotland it is confined to Forfarshire, where it 

 grows about Rescobie, and formerly at Restennet. It is reported 

 from Scalloway and Griiendal, Dunrossness, Shetland, but most likely 

 this is a mistake. Local and rare, but widely distributed in the west, 

 centre, and north of Ireland. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Summer, Autumn. 



Caudex very long, creeping at a short distance below the surface 

 of the loose peaty soil in which the plant grows, and extending 

 rapidly when the conditions favourable for its growth occur ; it 

 is about the thickness of a straw, nearly black, with very numerous 

 radical fibres, which are at first tomentose, afterwards glabrous. 

 The fronds are produced alternately, H to 2 inches apart, in this 

 respect resembling those of the British species of Phegopteris, but 

 there is this difference between them, that in luxuriant plants the 

 fronds, instead of being produced singly at the nodes of the caudex, 

 are in small fascicles, sometimes as many as 5 or 6 being found 

 together. The barren fronds are the first to appear, about the month 

 of May, the fertile ones not for a month or six weeks afterwards. The 

 fronds continue to develop during the whole season, until stopped by 

 the advent of frost, which kills both barren and fertile fronds. The 

 stipes is from the thickness of a stocking-wire to that of a crow-quill, 

 much longer and stouter in the fertile than in the barren fronds. 

 These are 7 inches to 2 feet long ; the lamina is 6 to 18 inches long, 

 by 3 or 4 inches broad ; the ultimate segments are \ to f- inch long. 

 In the sterile fronds the stipes varies from 3 to 9 inches long, and the 

 frond is from 3 to 15 inches, and from 2 to 6 inches broad ; the ulti- 

 mate segments are | to ^ inch long, commonly contiguous, so that 

 the pinnae have not the pectinated appearance of those of the fertile 

 fronds. This is no doubt in great measure owing to the segments of 

 the latter being recurved ; but even when the latter are flattened out, 

 they are narrower than in the barren fronds. In both the fertile and 

 barren fronds, but especially in the latter, the first pair of segments is 

 often larger than tho, others, and the pinnules are separated almost 

 down to the midrib of the pinna, but this is by no means always so. 



