30 WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND FERNS. 



is not found in the eastern half of England, and is rare in 

 Ireland, where it occurs in Antrim, Down, and Louth. In the 

 Highlands it attains to an elevation of 3500 feet. Beyond our 

 islands, it is found over the northern and middle portions of 

 the Continent, Asia Minor, and Northern India ; but in the 

 New World it appears to have been recorded only from Alaska. 

 The name Cryptogramme is a compound of two Greek words, 

 Kruptos, hidden, and gramme^ a line, in allusion to the fact that 

 the lines of spore-capsules are not so evident as in other species. 

 The English names do not appear to have been widely used. 

 Parsley Fern is the most generally adopted in the districts 

 where the plant grows ; Rock Brakes and Curled Brakes also 

 are in use, but some others that are to be found in books are 

 not folk-names and therefore not in use among country people. 



Hard Fern (Lomaria spicani). 



Though not so plentiful, the Hard Fern is almost as widely 

 distributed throughout Britain as the Bracken. But it is by no 

 means so well known, for its habitat is the woodland bank, the 

 sheltered sides of a brooklet or deep drain, or the floor of a 

 high pine-wood. It is a well-named species, for the stiffness 

 and firm texture of the dark-green varnished frond at once 

 suggest hardness as a term of comparison with the other ferns. 

 It is one of the simplest in the matter of frond division. The 

 outline of the frond is a long and narrow lance-shape. As in 

 the case of the Parsley Fern, the fronds that bear spores are 

 distinct from those that do not ; the fresh-looking barren fronds 

 spreading and more or less prostrate on the moss or heather 

 amidst which they grow, whilst the attenuated and withered- 

 looking fertile fronds stand erectly in the centre of the tuft. 

 The barren fronds with the brown stipes are a foot or less in 

 length, deeply cut (pinnatifid) above, but quite pinnate below ; 

 the divisions between the pinnae or lobes being so narrow that 



