ATHYRIUM FILIX-FCEMINA. 



101 



pointed, and aiiriciilate. Segments bi- and tri-dcntate. Superior 

 basal pinnules much longer than the others. Sori large, con- 

 spicuous, and eventually confluent. 



Fig. 427. — Middle plnn.'B, 



Fig. 428.— Ba.sal portion. 



Laciniato-polymorphum, Clapham. (Figs. 427 and 428.) — 

 Gathered in Onchan Bay, Isle of Man, in July, 1864, by Mr. 

 A. Clapham, of Scarborough. Fronds very various, some broad 

 and of a normal plumose character, not nulike those of the 

 Male Fern; others very much altered in form and width, 

 some only changed at the apex, others brandling and furcate 

 on the one side of the rachis and very brief on the other 

 side, some branching near the base and others near the apex, 

 whilst others are remarkably contracted, being scarcely one 

 inch and a half wide in a frond of twelve inches in lens'th. 

 It is scarcely possible to describe this variety, as it varies in 

 so extraordinary a degree in all ])arts of the fronds, and in 

 one frond from another. Usual length fifteen inches. Mr. A. 

 Clapham has obligingly forwarded a series of fronds. 



