114 WHERE TO FIND FERNS. 



HABITATS. Wet marshes and liquid bogs. It is 

 especially luxuriant in positions where shade and shelter 

 are provided by shrubs or trees. No other British fern 

 selects habitats which are so absolutely watery as are 

 those favoured by the Marsh Buckler Fern, which grows 

 actually in the soft liquid ooze of bogs, its rhizomas 

 floating on the bog surfaces. 



WHERE FOUND. In England, in the counties of Bed- 

 ford, Berks, Cambridge, Chester, Cumberland, Devon, 

 Dorset, Essex, Hants (the mainland and the Isle of 

 Wight), Hereford, Huntingdon, Kent, Leicester, Lincoln, 

 Norfolk, Northumberland, Nottingham, Salop, Somerset, 

 Stafford, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Warwick, Westmore- 

 land, and York. In Wales, in the counties of Anglesea, 

 Caernarvon, Flint, Glamorgan, and Pembroke. In 

 Scotland, only in the county of Forfar. In Ireland, in 

 the counties of Antrim, Galway, Kerry, and Mayo. 



XXXVIII. THE FORKED SPLEENWORT. 



Asplenium scptentrionale. 

 (Plate XIV., Figs. 8 and 9, page 75.) 



LENGTH OF FROND. Two to six inches. 



GENERAL DESCRIPTION. Roots long, wiry, very fine, 

 abundant, fibrous. Rootstock very small, tufted. Fronds 

 numerous, evergreen, grass-like, usually produced in 

 dense tufts from the crown ; stipes pale green, purplish- 

 brown at the base, three or four times longer than the 

 leafy part, which consists of two or three narrow, simple, 

 or forked branches resembling short blades of grass, 

 each branch being either simple or once or twice sharply 

 cleft at its apex. Fructification borne in elongated lines 



