170 ASPLENIUM EBENEUM. 



Length of frond twelve to eighteen inches, delicate green, 

 with the rachis and stipes ebeneous. 



Fronds smooth, linear-lanceolate, and pinnate. 



Pinnae sessile, imbricated, and oblong, the superior ones 

 auriculate, rounded at the apex, and bluntly crenate on the 

 margins. The inferior ones cordate-hastate. 



Caudex stout and horizontal; stipites tufted. 



The normal form has not been found in Great Britain, and 

 this species is only added on the supposition that Asjpleniutn 

 refract um is a variety of this Fern. 



Fig. 513. — Basal portion of young Frond. 



Refractum, Moore. (Asplenium fontanum, tar. refractum, 

 Moore and Hooker, A. fo7itanum, var. proliferum, Wollaston.) 

 (Plate XLII.— B, and fig. 513.)— First known in 1851, from 

 the gardens at Peper Harrow Park, Surrey, and afterwards 

 introduced by Mr. Parker, of Hornsey, A person named 

 Filden had found three plants in Scotland, but, being since 

 dead, this interesting plant has obscurity cast over it. It has 

 linear sub-bipinnate fronds, with brief, oblong, obtuse, refracted 

 pinnse, pinnate at the base, and pinnatifid above. Pinnules 

 (the basal anterior one alone distant, the remainder confluent) 

 roundish, having a few coarse, angular, mucronate teeth. Sori 

 brief, oblong-oblique, in a line on either side near the costa of 

 the pinnse. Rachis chesnut-coloured, marginate above, (not 

 winged,) and bulbil-bearing. Length seven or eight inches, 

 width three quarters of an inch. The frond is longer and 

 narrower in proportion than Asplenium fontanum ; the outline 

 is different, being equal and linear instead of incurving up- 

 wards. The pinnsB are much less divided, and are refracted in 

 a remarkable degree. Little bulbils are formed at the junction 

 of the pinnae with the rachis. 



