ASPLENIUM TRICHOMANES. 201 



Mr. W. Andrews, of Dublin, has found examples in the 

 west of Ireland; and Mr. R. Barrington others from Galway 

 that are ,of great size, more than a foot long, having pinna; 

 half an inch long and a quarter of an inch broad, and about 

 thirty pairs of pinnae on each frond. 



This Fern is not the easiest of our British species to 

 cultivate in pots. It succeeds best in a compost of porous 

 loamy soil, lumps of sandstone, and lime from old walls. An 

 excess of moisture is fatal to it, nevertheless with proper 

 drainage I have found plunging the pots in leaf-soil is the 

 most successful treatment. AV^hen planted in sandy peat or 

 leaf-mould, Mr. G. B. Wollaston has found the jilants did not 

 flourish. Planted on rock-work, where it can take its natural 

 position, and its roots can penetrate between the crevices, its 

 beauty is shewn to perfection. 



The fronds are linear and pinnate; the pinna; usually 

 roundish-oblong, obliquely wedge-shaped at the base, and 

 crenated, yet variable in form. The stipes short, smooth, and 

 brown, rounded behind and flat in front, terminal, and 

 adherent to the rhizoma. 



Rachis dark brown also. Caudex short and tufted. 



The fronds vary from two to eighteen inches in length. 



Pinna; deep green, blunt at the apex, scarcely stalked. 



Veins forking from a midvein, and terminating within the 

 margin. 



The fructification distributed over the frond. Sori linear, 

 oblique, numerous, indusiate, eventually confluent. 



This Fern has some general resemblance to Asple/iiufn viride. 



There are several varieties, a portion of which are singularly 

 distinct. 



Incisum, Moore. (Fig. 548.) — Found in Devonshire by the 

 Rev. W. S. Hore; Kent Clough, near Burnley, Lancashire, by 

 Mr. S. Gibson; in Burrowdale, Cumberland, by Miss AVright. 

 It is also said to have been found in Jersey, and in County 

 Clare. In 1860, Mr. Edmund Thomas Higgins, of No. 18, 

 Kingsdown Parade, Bristol, found a plant near Pyle, in Gla- 

 morganshire, which in 1862 was noticed to bear fertile fronds, 

 though sparingly. One of the most beautiful and rare of 

 British Ferns. The fronds are pinnate, and of the ordinary 

 VOL. II. 2D 



