FILICES. 87 



The texture of the lamina is also variable, it is generally firm, 

 more so indeed than that of L. spinulosa when growing in the same 

 localities, but in the form alpina, and to a less extent in the wood- 

 form tanacetifolia, it is thin, but is never at all translucent. 



In most of the forms the pinnules are more or less convex, when 

 they are exposed to the direct rays of the sun. I have found that 

 a flat pinnuled plant brought into a sunny part of the garden, 

 produces fronds with convex pinnae. As a general rule, the more 

 luxuriant the plant the more divided is the frond. 



The number of glands on the stipes, rachis, lamina and margin of 

 the indusium is also liable to great variation, though I have never 

 observed the indusium, at least in the young state, without some 

 stalked or clavate glands. The fronds remain green all winter in 

 sheltered stations, but the stipes breaks over near the base, and the 

 fronds are prostrate. In vernation the frond occasionally forms 

 loops, but more commonly it unfolds regularly as in other Ferns. 



The marking of the spores seems very constant ; instead of a few 

 large rounded tubercles as in L. spinulosa, they are thickly covered 

 with small conical acute tubercles. 



The variety lepidota is probably a distinct species, though its native 

 locality is doubtful ; it is much more divided than any of our British 

 forms, quite as much as or even more so than the North American 

 L. intermedia (which also occurs in Madeira), and it agrees with this 

 in the lamina having a triangular or deltoid-ovate outline (though 

 more ovate in lepidota than in L. intermedia), but it differs conspicu- 

 ously in the shorter broader blunter and paler scales, and in the first 

 pair of pinnules of the basal pinnae being longer than the second, as 

 in all the British forms of L. spinulosa, dilatata and aemula, and also 

 in not having the pinnae spreading at right angles to the rachis, and 

 the pinnules at right angles to the secondary rachides. One of the most 

 striking peculiarities of lepidota is the number of broad cuspidate and 

 narrow piliferous scales which clothe the under surface and sides of the 

 primary, secondary, and tertiary rachides ; the teeth of the segments 

 are strongly incurved, and terminate in conspicuous mucros. Lamina 

 6 inches to 1 foot long, by 4 to 8 inches broad. I obtained the plant 

 I have in cultivation from Messrs. Sang's nursery in Kirkcaldy, 

 and have no doubt it is the same as that described by Mr. Moore. 



Broad Shield-fern. 



SPECIES XL -L ASTREA iEMULA. Brackenridge. 



Plate 1858. 



Babenh. Crypt. Vase. Europ. Exsicc. No. 117. 

 L. Fcenisecii, Watson, Phyt. 1846, p. 568. 



L. recurva, Newman, Nat. Aim. 1844, p. 23 ; and Hist. Brit. Ferns, ed. ii. p. 226. 

 Nephrodium semulum, Baiter. Hook. fil. Stud. Fl. p. 466. Hook. & Bak. Syn. Fil. 

 ed. ii. p. 279. 



