THE FORKED SPLEENWORT 79 



it on the other side of the rachis. The lobes are some- 

 times so much separated as to look like distinct pinnse. 

 There is no midrib or vein, the rachis answering the 

 purpose if the frond is not lobed, or else becoming 

 forked so as to send up one vein to each of the teeth. 

 Three or four long linear sori are crowed into this 

 small space, so that when the ripening sori burst the 

 indusia, they become confluent over the whole under- 

 surface. This confluence of the sori over the whole 

 under-surface has led some writers to consider this 

 plant an Acrostichum. Others, from the sori being 

 face to face in consequence of their growing on each 

 side of the vein and almost close, have thought it a 

 Scolopendrium, the mark of which is to have the sori. 

 confluent in pairs face to face. It has therefore been 

 sometimes called Acrostichum septentrionale and Scolo- 

 pendrium septentrionale. If the plant, however, be 

 examined when young, it will be found to be a true 

 Asplenivm. 



The Forked Spleenwort does not appear to be found 

 in Ireland ; but, though rare, has a wide range in 

 Great Britain, from Devonshire to the Orkneys. It 

 grows abundantly in some of the mountainous tracts 

 of Central Europe, and extends from Eussia and Scan- 

 dinavia to Italy and Spain. In Asia it inhabits the 

 mountain ranges of the Ural and the Altai, and is 

 found from Northern India to the Caucasus. It 

 occurs also in New Mexico. It prefers fissures of 

 rocks, or between the stones of loose walls. 



As in the case of the allied species (Moore again, in 

 the octavo edition of his Nature-printed British Ferns), 



