THIS MOUNTAIN PARSLEY FERN. 



8, 



THE MOUNTAIN PARSLEY PERN. 

 Allosorus crispus. 



PLATE 1, Fm. 7. 



|0 compare this exceedingly pretty little 

 Fern to a tuft of parsley would be to 

 give it, perhaps, the best general de- 

 scription which could be found for it. About 

 six inches is its average height ; but we ourselves 

 have had specimens, brought by a friend from the 

 neighbourhood of Creetown, in Scotland, seven 

 or eight inches in length : and it is even pos- 

 sible that larger specimens might be obtained 

 from habitats where the conditions of growth are 

 unusually favourable. The Parsley Fern has 

 two distinct kinds of frond barren and fertile. 

 This distinction in the fronds exists in many of 

 our native Ferns ; but it is only in some that, 

 as in the case of the Parsley Fern, the con- 

 formation of the fertile fronds is different from 

 that of the barren ones. Spores may be present 



265 



