MOUNTAIN BUCKLER-FERN. 79 



toothed at their edges. Some of the lowest pinnae are so short 

 that they are mere lobes. The colour of the frond is a bright 

 golden-green, and its back is thickly sprinkled with small 

 globular glands which give out a distinct odour of citron, 

 especially when passed through the hand. When the young 

 frond is unrolling it presents an entirely different appearance 

 from that of the Male-fern in a similar condition ; for whereas 

 the Male-fern frond is shaggy with rusty scales, those on the 

 crosier of the Mountain-fern are thin and silvery. They are at 

 first continued all up the rachis, but most of them drop off 

 when the frond has reached its full expansion, when it is 

 ordinarily two or three feet long. The sori, which are numerous, 

 have a distinctive arrangement, for they form a regular row 

 along each side of the pinnule and close to the margin. The 

 indusium is thin and small, not large enough to cover the heap 

 of spore-cases, and often is altogether wanting. In most cases 

 it only imperfectly answers to the kidney-shape that is the badge 

 of the genus. (Plates 8, 80, 83, 84.) 



Although this is a well-named species, it must not be 

 assumed that it only grows at considerable elevations ; its 

 vertical range is really from a little above sea-level up to 3000 

 feet. At the same time, it should be mentioned that high heaths 

 and mountain pastures are the places where it will be found in 

 greatest abundance. In some of them as the steep slopes 

 that rise above Afon Peris in the Pass of Llanberis it is the 

 fern, more abundant than Bracken. There, with its rootstock 

 snug under lichen-covered rocks, its fronds push through a deep 

 carpet of moss, and the crowded golden shuttlecocks stretch in 

 thousands up the bank of every gulley, until the upper ones are 

 lost to view in the mists that veil the top. 



One of our photographs (Plate 8) shows a colony of seedling 

 Mountain-ferns growing at the foot of a sandy bank bordering 

 one of the paths through Tilgate Forest, Sussex, where such 

 seedlings are plentifully produced. This particular patch was 



G 



