34 WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND FERNS. 



attains its full dimensions. Its wider distribution includes 

 Arctic Europe, Temperate Africa, Northern Asia, and North 

 America. 



By Gerarde the plant was also called White Maidenhair, from 

 the fronds sometimes becoming glaucous. Tentwort is another 

 old name, originally Taintwort, from its use as a remedy for the 

 taint or rickets. The specific name ruta-muraria is Latin for 

 Wall Rue, a name obviously suggested by the resemblance of 

 its pinnules to the leaflets of Rue, and to the fact that it is best 

 known as growing upon walls. This name is found in Turner's 

 "Names of Herbes" (1548), and Lyte in the "Niewe Herball," 

 thirty years later, calls it Stone Rue. 



Alternate-leaved Spleenwort (Aspknium germanfcum). 



This is one of the rarest of our native ferns and one of the 

 smallest. Its general appearance suggests the Wall Rue, though 

 in an attenuated and drawn-up condition. The rootstock is 

 more tufted, but like that of the Wall Rue, creeping and with- 

 out scales. The pale-green fronds vary from four to seven 

 inches in length, of which about half is due to the stipes. They 

 are lance-shaped and simply pinnate, the pinnas distant, and 

 from seven to nine in number on each frond, placed alternately. 

 They are wedge-shaped with the broad end more or less lobed 

 or toothed, but there is a good deal of difference in this respect 

 between the upper and lower pinnas. Further, the " thin end of 

 the wedge " in the lower pinnas becomes a footstalk ; but the 

 upper pinnas are stalkless. There is no distinct midrib, and 

 each pinna bears from two to four sori, similar to those of Wall 

 Rue, but with a clean-edged indusium. The lower part of the 

 stipes is black and naked ; and the frond grows erect. It fruits 

 from June to September (Plate 32). 



The plant has a very limited range in this country, is never 

 found but sparingly, and mostly in company with the next 



