6O WHERE TO FIND FERNS. 



forming a cluster of crowns that are consequently 

 attached to each other, the crowns being raised slightly 

 above the ground. Fronds numerous, leathery, upper- 

 sides glossy, produced in tufts, and of two kinds barren 

 and fertile. Barren fronds evergreen, narrowly lance- 

 shaped, tapering at both ends, pinnatifid sometimes 

 pinnate in their lower parts ; pinnas narrowly oblong, 

 blunt-pointed, attached by the whole widths of their 

 bases to the rachis, produced in opposite pairs or alter- 

 nately along on each side of the rachis ; stipes reddish- 

 brown, smooth, wiry, from one-fourth to one-seventh the 

 length of the leafy part. Fertile fronds much taller than 

 barren ones, deciduous ; stipes one-third and sometimes 

 one-half the length of leafy part ; leafy part lance-shaped, 

 distinctly pinnate ; pinnae long, narrow, attenuated, 

 drawn out to a point, in opposite pairs or alternately 

 placed along the rachis and curved upwards. Fructifi- 

 cation on fertile fronds only ; sporangia arranged in 

 double lines, one on each side of midvein of each pinna, 

 at first distinct from each other, afterwards becoming 

 confluent, and densely covering the under sides of the 

 pinnae. The sporangia are covered by elongated indusia, 

 which burst, when the spores are ripe, on the sides next 

 the midveins, and, when thrown back, the spore-cases 

 present a dense, rich-brown mass, ordinarily hiding the 

 whole of the under sides of the pinnae. 



HABITATS. Moist slopes of woods; damp, stony 

 crevices on hillsides and moorland heights ; stream- 

 margins ; the sides and bases of hedgebanks, especially 

 hedgebanks partly constructed of loose stones ; the 

 stony bases of roadside hedges ; the drier parts of bogs 

 and marshland ; the bases of clumps of shrubbery in 

 forest and woodland glades, and moist nooks of all 

 kinds of rocks, especially in the lowest, most moist, and 

 shady positions. 



WHERE FOUND. In England, in the counties of 

 Bedford, Berks, Bucks, Cambridge, Chester, Cornwall, 



