THE SPLEENWOftTS. 



5. 



THE LANCEOLATE SPLEENWORT. 



Asp lenium lanceolatum. 



PLATE 7, FIG. 6. 



[HERE is so much similarity between the 

 Lanceolate and the Black Maidenhair 

 Spleenwort, that Fern-hunters are in 

 danger oftentimes of mistaking the one for the 

 other. But there is one mark by which the two 

 Ferns can be unmistakably distinguished from 

 each other. In the Black Maidenhair the frond is 

 broadest at its base, and tapers upwards gradually 

 to its point; it is, in fact, distinctly triangular. In 

 Lanceolatum, on the contrary, the frond is 

 broadest about the centre of its leafy part ; and 

 from thence it tapers in both directions to its tip 

 and to its base. In other respects the description 

 of the fronds of Adiantum nigrum will very nearly 

 apply to those of Lanceolatum, with this general 

 difference, that the widest branches of the 

 fronds of Lanceolatum are not so broad and not 



377 



