86 WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND FERNS. 



mentioned in connection with the Mountain Polypody : the 

 erroneous impression of likeness or habitat that is conveyed by 

 such a name. It is bad enough to have to contend with such 

 difficulties arising out of the unsuitable scientific name. Let us 

 not add to them by continuing an unsuitable English name that 

 was born in modern books, and has no ancient folk-usage behind 

 it to justify its existence. 



There is sufficient general resemblance to the Mountain 

 Polypody to justify the novice who knows that species in 

 declaring the Three-branched Polypody to be a near relation ; 

 and yet the difference between them is so marked as to make 

 any confusion unpardonable, if not impossible. Like the last 

 species, the perennial portion of the fern consists of a slender 

 creeping rootstock clothed in scales, but here the scales are 

 coloured orange-brown. They are continued a little way up the 

 long thin stipes, which varies from six to twelve inches in length, 

 the leafy portion of the frond being of similar length and of 

 almost equal breadth at its base. It is divided into three 

 distinct parts, each of them bearing a rough resemblance to 

 a frond of P. phegopteris. That is to say, the two lowest pinnae 

 are triangular, the pinnules quite distinct and deeply pinnatifid 

 into blunt lobes with round-toothed edges ; the lowest pinnules 

 much larger than the others. The central portion of the frond 

 that is, all the pinnas above the lowest pair does not amount 

 to much more than either of these lowest pinnae, and the dis- 

 section of the parts is not so deep. The frond is soft and 

 smooth ; and the arrangement of the sori is much the same 

 as in Mountain Polypody ; the spores are ripe in July and 

 August. (Plates 92, 95.) 



Owing to the branching of the rachis, the unfolding of the 

 frond-bud is very striking and distinct. When the unrolling has 

 reached that point where the three branches are free, we have 

 three little balls of pale green supported on three branches of 

 a wire. 



