MAIDENHAIR SPLEENWORT. I 24 



Maidenhair Spleen wort (Aspknium trichomams). 



A common plant locally on rocks and walls, having a slender 

 dark-brown polished rachis and a large number of roundish- 

 oblong leaflets (pinnce\ arranged pinnately on each side. The 

 capsules will be found in short thick lines on the under surface. 

 There is a similar species, the Green Spleenwort (A. mride\ 

 with a green, softer rachis and the pinnae distinctly stalked, 

 shorter and paler ; growing on wet rocks in mountainous 

 districts. 



Male Fern (NephrotKtim filix-mas). 



In the Male-fern so-called by our fathers owing to its 

 robust habit as compared with the tender grace of one they 

 called Lady-fern (Asplenium filix-fcemina) we have an 

 advance in the intricacy of frond-division. Our page is not 

 sufficiently large to represent the whole of the frond, but the 

 portion we give shows that the pinnae are themselves 

 again divided into pinnules. This fern grows to a great size, 

 its rootstock very thick and wcody, its fronds erect and three 

 or four feet high. As a rule the rachis and its continuation 

 below the leafy portion (stipes) are shaggy with loose golden- 

 brown scales. The spore-capsules are in little round heaps in 

 rows along the pinnae, and each heap is covered by a thin kidney- 

 shaped involucre. Note in the unrolling of a young frond how 

 beautifully the whole is packed up. The lateral divisions of 

 the pinnse are rolled each on itself, then the pinnae are rolled 

 up from their tips toward the rachis, and finally the whole 

 frond is coiled up from the tip downwards. This is the 

 characteristic vernation of ferns, and differs greatly from the 

 packing of undeveloped leaves in the leaf-buds of flowering- 

 plants. 



