88 FERNS OF THE LAKE COUNTRY 



so large, but sometimes even six or eight inches 

 long, is a tufted evergreen, living on the limestone, 

 and lodging, when away from its native rocks, on any 

 old walls or ruins. The stipes is short and scaly ; the 

 fronds are commonly pinnatifid, sometimes pinnate, 

 divided rather more deeply. The upper surface is a 

 deep opaque green ; the under is densely crowded with 

 closely-packed and overlapping scales, whose rusty 

 brownness, as they project beyond the margin, seen 

 yet more fully in the exposed under-surface of the 

 young partially-developed fronds, contrasts with the 

 deep green of the upper surface. The pinnae or lobes 

 are ovate, either entire or lobed in the margin. The 

 venation is indistinct, on account of the opacity of the 

 thick and fleshy fronds. Indeed, it is only to be made 

 out by examining young fronds, removing the scaly- 

 covering, and the outer skin of the frond itself. It is 

 then seen that the principal vein, entering at the lower 

 corner, proceeds sinuously toward the upper side of the 

 apex, branching alternately, and branching again, the 

 venules becoming more or less joined near the margin. 

 The sori are borne irregularly along the sides of the 

 venules, most of them directed toward the apex of the 

 pinna. At first they are quite hidden by the scales, 

 but ultimately the spore-cases protrude between them, 

 though, being nearly of the same colour, never very 

 obviously. 



In old times this plant had a great medicinal reputa- 

 tion. Gerard writes of it : " There be empiricks or 

 blinde practitioners of this age who teach that with 

 this herbe not only the hardness and swelling of the 



