52 BRITISH FERNS. 



stipes is thickly clothed with small, narrow, jagged, pait- 

 coloured scales. The fronds are bipinnate, the lowest pair 

 of pinnae always longer and larger than the rest, and the 

 pinnules on the inferior side of the pinnae larger than those 

 on the superior side. The pinnules are of an oblong-ovate 

 figure, and the lowest of them often divided again into a 

 series of oblong lobes, for the most part decurrent, but some- 

 times slightly stalked ; the margin is cut into short spinous- 

 bointed teeth. The veins of the pinnules are alternately 

 branched from a sinuous midvein, and these veins give off 

 two or three alternate venules, the lowest anterior one bear- 

 ing the sorus. The exact ramification of the veins depends 

 upon the degree in which the pinnules or lobes are divided. 

 The fructification is distributed over the whole under sur- 

 face, the sori being pretty evenly distributed in two lines 

 along each pinnule or lobe ; they are covered by small reni- 

 form indusia, which have their margin uneven, and fringed 

 with small, round, stalkless glands. The whole frond is 

 covered with similar glandular bodies. 



This Fern, which is most abundant in Ireland and the 

 western parts of England, occurs in damp sheltered woods, 

 and on shady banks and rocks. 



It is of an elegant drooping aspect, and is cultivated with- 

 out difficulty. ^ It is the more valuable as a pot plant, from 

 its moderate size and its evergreen character. 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE LADY FERN. 



THE genus Aihyrium is that to which the Lady Fern is re- 

 ferred. It is one of the most variable among our native 

 Ferns, all the various forms being plants with delicate and 

 beautiful fronds of annual duration. They vary in size from 

 tufts of a few inches high, to plumy masses of the height of 

 three or four feet. The texture is thin, and almost trans- 

 parent, on which account the nature of the venation and of 

 the connexion of the parts of fructification may be here very 

 well seen and studied. These plants serve to connect the 

 AspidiumAike and the Asplenium-like groups of Ferns, from 

 the former of which they differ in having the sori elongate 

 instead of round. The sori, which form short lines, are 

 sometimes curved at the end, or even horse-shoe-shapcd ; and 



