84 WHERE TO FIND FERNS. 



in short, leaf-mould has accumulated in stony or woody 

 places, it may be looked for, as its creeping, vigorous 

 rhizomas love to occupy the congenial habitats which 

 shade and a leaf-soil provide. 



WHERE FOUND. In every county of England, Wales, 

 Scotland, and Ireland ; in the Isle of Man, and the 

 Channel Islands, growing in many places in extreme 

 abundance. Polypodium vulgare, Lastrea filix-mas (the 

 Male Fern), and Pteris aquilina (the Bracken) are the 

 most plentiful and widely-distributed of all British ferns. 



XVIII. THE MOUNTAIN POLYPODY. 



Polypodium phegopteris. 

 (Plate IX., Fig. 4, page 65.) 



LENGTH OF FROND. Six inches to a foot and a half 

 or twenty inches. 



GENERAL DESCRIPTION. Roots fibrous, somewhat 

 long, and numerous. Rootstock, a rhizoma, slender but 

 vigorous, creeping extensively and horizontally along or 

 just underneath the soil. Fronds delicate, herbaceous, 

 abundant, springing from numerous points along the 

 upper sides of the rhizomas ; stipes delicate, pale green, 

 slender, brittle, about double the length of the leafy 

 part; leafy part triangular, often pinnate in its lower part, 

 pinnatifid higher up. Pinnae ordinarily in opposite pairs 

 and pinnatifid, the pinnules nearest the main rachis 

 being sometimes again pinnate in the lowest pair of 

 pinnse, which ordinarily hang downwards in a peculiar 

 manner distinct from the others. The form of the pinnae 

 in the lower part of the frond is somewhat lance-shaped, 

 their bases tapering towards the rachis and their apices 



