54 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



The indusium is extremely thin, and very quickly disappears, after 

 which the sori appear to be as naked as in the genus Phegopteris. 

 The young fronds have generally a few glands, especially beneath, but 

 these can rarely be detected in fully matured fronds ; they are sessile, 

 and yellowish, situated chiefly along the back of the midribs of the 

 pinnse. Sometimes a few very minute whitish hairs are to be found on 

 the rachis and lamina. I have not seen British specimens with the 

 segments cut, but Milde gives a var. " pinnatifidum," from Silesia, in 

 which the lacinise are irregularly pinnatifid. 



Marsh-fern, or Female Buckler-fem. 



SPECIES II.— LAS T REA OREOPTERIS. Presl. 



Plate 1849. 



Babenh. Crypt. Yasc. Europ. Exsicc. No. 39. 



L. montana, Newm. Hist. Brit. Ferns, ed. iii. p. 130. Moore, Nat. Print. Brit. Ferns, 



8vo. ed. Vol. I. p. 170. 

 Nephrodiuin Oreopteris, Desv. Hook. fil. Stud. Fl. p. 466. 

 N. montanum, Baker. Hook. & Bak. Syn. Fil. ed. ii. p. 271. 

 Aspidium Oreopteris, Swartz, Summ. Veg. Scand. p. 82. Babenh. I.e. Sm. Eng. Fl. 



Vol. IV. p. 286. Fries. 

 A. montanum, Ascherson. Milde, Fil. Europ. p. 115. 

 Polystichum Oreopteris, DC. Koch, Syn. Fl. Germ, et Helv. ed. ii. p. 978. Gr. & Godr. 



Fl. de Fr. Vol. III. p. 631. 

 P. montanum, Both, Fl. Germ. Vol. III. p. 74. 

 Polypodium Oreopteris, Ehrh. Sm. Eng. Bot. No. 1019. 

 P. montanum, Vogler, non Lamarck. 

 Hemestheum montanum, Newm. Phyt. 1851, App. p. xxii. 



Caudex short, thick, separating into numerous crowns, which are 

 also thick and shortly creeping or decumbent, and covered by the 

 imbricated bases of fronds. Fronds all similar, several produced 

 close together from the extremity of each crown, erect or inclined 

 outwards, deciduous. Stipes very short, stout, channelled on the 

 anterior face in the upper part, containing 2 vascular bundles, 

 glandular, with numerous ovate-acuminate pale scales which are 

 partially persistent. Lamina firm, bright green, glandular beneath, 

 oblanceolate or elliptical, gradually and longly attenuated towards the 

 base, gradually acuminate and acute at the apex, pinnate ; lower 

 pinnas deltoid, very short, those in the middle and apex of the frond 

 triangular-strapshaped ; all of them sessile, pinnatifid or pinnati- 

 partite ; ultimate segments flat, oblong or oval-oblong, sometimes 

 slightly falcate, obtuse, entire or faintly crenate, with the margins 

 not recurved. Ultimate veins running from the midrib to the 



