LASTREA. 119 



It proves, hoTrever, to ))e tlie old Poli/podium wmulum of 

 the la,st century, which name must be restored. 



This Fern is a moderate-sized and very elegant plant, 

 of drooping- hahit, and possessing a crisped appearance, 

 from the recurving of the maro-ins of all the seo;ment3 of 

 the fronds. It grows from one to two feet high, and from 

 its tufted stem produces a spreading circle of triangular 

 arching fronds, the stipes of which, of about the same length 

 as the leafy part, is thickly clothed with small, narrow, 

 jagged, pale-coloured scales. The fronds are bipinnate, 

 the lowest pair of pinnae always longer and larger than the 

 rest, and the pinnules on the inferior side of the pinnaa 

 larger than those on the superior side. The pinnules are 

 of oblong-ovatc figure, and the lowest of them often divided 

 again into a series of oblong lobes, for the most part 

 decurrent, but sometimes slightly stalked ; the margin is 

 cut into short spinous-pointed teeth. The veins of the 

 pinnules are alternately branched from a sinuous midvein, 

 and these veins give off two or three alternate venules, 

 the lowest anterior one bearing the sorus- The exact 

 ramification of the veins depends upon the degree in which 

 the pinnules or lobes are divided. The fructification is 

 •distributed over the whole under-surface, the sori bein"* 



