60 



ALLOSORUS CRISPUS. 



Fronds varying from four to twelve inches in length; colour 

 pale green, delicate, and vivid. Herbaceous. 



E-hizoma perennial, brief, tufted, and having pale brown 

 scales; roots wiry, branching, and dark in colour. Stipes slender, 

 smooth, and pale green, either equal in length to the leafy 

 portion of the frond, or longer. 



Veins of the fertile frond consisting of a flexuous midvein, 

 with alternate simple or occasionally forked veinlets reaching 

 nearly to the margin of the lobes; whilst in the sterile frond 

 they are repeatedly furcately branched, passing through the 

 centre to the margin of each segment, and being forked with a 

 bifid, and simple with a simple segment. 



Sori hid beneath the reflexed margins of the pinnules, which 

 nearly join at the midrib, eventually confluent. Spore cases small, 

 spores smooth and roundish oblong, sometimes somewhat angular. 



In Lancashire the "Rock Brakes," or "Mountain Parsley 

 Fern," flourishes at nearly the sea level, whilst in the Highlands 

 of Scotland it is found at an elevation of three thousand four 

 hundred and fiftv feet. 



Fi«. a«. Fij?. 39. Fig. 40. 



Fit's. 38, 3'J, anil 40 arc not vaviotie?, but different fronds occasionally found on the same plant. 



