iHE SPLEENWORTS. 



Fio. 



BLACK MAIDENHAIR SPLEENWOBT. 



The Black Maidenhair Spleen wort is the Asplenium Adian- 

 lum-nigrum of botanists, and has, moreover, been called 

 Tarachia Adianturrwiigrum, and Asplenium lucidwm. 

 ^ It is a rather common evergreen 

 Fern, and a very conspicuous orna- 

 ment of the situations where it 

 occurs in a vigorous state. The 

 fronds grow in tufts, and vary much 

 in size, from a height of three or 

 four inches when it occurs on walls, 

 to a foot and a half and even two 

 feet including the stipes, when it 

 occurs on shady hedge-banks in 

 congenial soil. They are triangular, 

 more or less elongated at the point, 

 the shining dark purple stipes being 

 often as long as, or longer than, 

 the leafy portion ; but in stunted 

 plants growing in sterile situations 

 very much shorter. They grow 

 erect or dropping, according to the 

 situations in which they occur. 

 They are bipinnate, or some- 

 times tripinnate; the pinnae pin- 

 nate, triangular-ovate drawn out at 

 the point, the lower pair always 

 longer than the next above them. 

 The pinnules, especially those on 

 the larger pinnae, are again pin- 

 nate ; the alternate pinnules being 

 deeply lobed, and the margins 

 sharply serrate. Each pinnule has 

 a distinct mid vein or principal vein, 

 bearing simple or branched venules, 

 on which the sori are produced. 

 At first the sori are distinct, and 

 have the elongate narrow form 

 common to this genus, but as they 

 become older they often spread and 

 become confluent, so that almost 

 the entire under-surface of the 

 frond is covered with the spore- 



Tke indusium is narrow, with its free margin 



