45 



and sand, and supplied during the growing season with abundance 

 of water. When potted, the ordinary compost will suffice ; but the 

 pots should be large, the bottom covered with small lumps of char- 

 coal, and placed in pans of water. In a shaded greenhouse, under 

 these circumstances, this beautiful fern may be grown to great per- 

 fection, and it assumes a delicacy of hue and texture resembling 

 those of tropical development. In the open air its beauty is much 

 enhanced by planting at such a distance from others as to allow the 

 foliage from each tuft to spread without interference, and this is a 

 good rule to be observed in the arrangement of all the larger tufted 

 species of the tribe ; even in artificial wilderness scenery, if it be 

 not attended to, the general effect of the masses is greatly dete- 

 riorated. 



In Ireland, A. Filix-fcemina abounds on most of the bogs, occu- 

 pying in the open parts of the country the position of the common 

 brake on our heaths, and, like that, is employed as a packing ma- 

 terial for fish and fruit. 



Genus 7. ASPLENIUM. 



GEN. CHAR. Sori linear-oblong, straight, attached along the upper 

 or inner side of the veins. Indusium opening toward the 

 mid-vein or inwardly. 



The sori are in some species, as in A. fontanum, so short, that at 

 first sight the generic character may appear doubtful, but the posi- 

 tion of the indusium is more to be attended to in this genus than 

 the outline of the masses of fructification. The mid-vein is not 

 always present, a circumstance that has given rise to a division of 

 the genus by some botanists, and which is here adopted in the 

 arrangement of the species, on account of the difference of habit to 

 which it is allied. 



The name, from the Greek a, privative, and o-TrX^v, the spleen, 

 was bestowed on one of the European species, formerly in repute 

 as a remedy in diseases supposed to originate in an enlargement of 

 the spleen, and even considered capable of dissolving that organ if 

 administered in excess. 



* Ultimate divisions with a distinct midvein. Asplenium. 

 ASPLENIUM FONTANUM. Smooth Rock Spleenwort. TAB. XXVI. 



Fronds linear-lanceolate, rigid, bipinnate, glabrous : pinnae ob- 

 long-ovate : pinnules obovate-cuneate, with a few large angular 

 mucronate teeth. Rachis winged throughout. Sori short, oblong. 



Asplenium fontanum, Bernhardi. Smith. Hooker and Arnott. 

 Moore, Handb. Aspidium fontanum, Swartz. E. B. 2024. 



