58 



plant is nearer to the latter than to A. Ruta-muraria. The ordi- 

 nary form of A. septentrionale is certainly very different, but under 

 cultivation it occasionally produces branched fronds, the lateral 

 lobes of which so nearly resemble the pinnse of A. alternifolium, 

 that the most practised eye would find it difficult to trace any 

 difference. The character of the indusium is the same. 



ASPLENIUM SEPTENTRIONALE. Forked Spleenwort. TAB. XXXIV. 



Fronds linear, bi- or tripartite ; the segments alternate, elongate, 

 acutely two- or three-toothed above. Margin of the indusium 

 entire. 



Asplenium septentrionale, Hull. Smith. E. B. 1017. Hooker and 

 Arnott. Babington. Moore. Amesium septentrionale, New- 

 man, Hist. Brit. Ferns, 265. Acrostichum septentrionale, 

 Linnaus. 



A very local species in this country, growing in the fissures of 

 rocks and the interstices of the loose stone walls that occupy the 

 place of hedges in the northern and western parts of the kingdom. 

 The habitats are too numerous to record, beyond general notice of 

 the districts in which they may be expected : it is rather a sub- 

 alpine than mountain species, not being found at any great eleva- 

 tion. The extreme western and northern counties of England, the 

 Snowdon district in Wales, the southern and central parts of Scot- 

 land, yield it in tolerable abundance, so as scarcely to warrant the 

 epithet of rare applied to it by most writers, though it is doubtless 

 much more so than formerly, in consequence of that insatiate spirit 

 that too often prevails among the petit maitres of natural science, 

 so numerous and so enthusiastic at the present day. The rhizoma 

 creeps and branches, forming when left undisturbed a compact 

 mass of stem and root fibre of large size compared with that of the 

 upward growth. The fronds are generally simple, of an elongated 

 linear-lanceolate form, gradually diminishing in breadth down- 

 wards into the rachis, and are from two to four inches in length ; 

 the broad part has usually two or three lateral alternate teeth, often 

 so deep as to become lobes, and the extremities of these as well as 

 of the main frond are usually furcate, whence the English name : 

 the variation to which this form is liable has been already referred 

 to in the concluding remarks on A. alternifolium. The venation is 

 dependent on the divisions of the frond, a vein or branch extending 

 into each point or segment. The sori are usually more elongated 

 than in the other species of the series, and become confluent in 

 maturity. 



The same plan may be pursued in the cultivation of this as re- 

 commended for A. Ruta-muraria, but it is less adapted for exposure 



