POLYPODIUM WIG ARE. JiO 



young witli brownish, deciduous, pointed scales, beneatli whicli, 

 green. Perennial. 



Eoots fibrous, hairy, and branching. 



The veins consist of a tortuous conspicuous mid-vein, which 

 branches alternately. The lateral veins branching into from 

 three to five venules or veinlets. In the barren frond the 

 venules are free, ending in club-like heads which form a line 

 near the eds;e of the lobes. In the fertile lobes they terminate 

 in a sorus. 



Fructification usually confined to the upper portion of the 

 under side of the frond. 



Sori mostlv round, sometimes sub-oblong; eventually crowded 

 and confluent. Destitute of an indusium. 



Spore-cases at first straw-colom-ed, turning to yellow, and 

 then to orange. Spores yellow. 



Lensrth of frond from three to twcntv inches. 

 The peasants collect the fronds for theii' supposed medicinal 

 value. 



Keadily increased by divisions of the branched rhizoma, and 

 well adapted for artificial rock-work. 

 Vernation circinate. 



From the habit of this plant a character is added to the 

 landscape where it grows. A group of pollard willows clothed 

 with Poll/podium vulgare are both singular and interesting. 

 The Matlock and Cromford Woods are carpeted over with 

 this species, the rhizomas spreading along the rocks, and 

 amongst the moss in the wildest profusion. In higher, more 

 exposed, and consequently more bleak situations, the form 

 becomes compact, and the size considerably stunted. A very 

 dwarf variety, scarcely differing from the normal form, occurs 

 along the raised banks of the hedges in the salt districts about 

 Xorthwich, especially near AVincham; and a similar variety I 

 noticed, subsequently, on Helvellyn and Fairfield, in the Lake 

 District. 



Some of my readers will doubtless remember on their visit 

 to the English Lakes, a small house by the road-side at 

 j^mbleside, covered with rock-work in the front, having only 

 two rooms, and being two stories high, one room down stairs, 

 and another reached by a stone staircase outside the house. 

 Some of thorn will have recollected this abode from the 



