Il6 WHERE TO FIND FERNS. 



XXXIX. THE ALTERNATE SPLEENWORT. 



Aspknium germanicum. 

 (Plate XIV., Figs. 6 and 7, page 75.) 



LENGTH OF FROND. Two to six inches. 



GENERAL DESCRIPTION. Roots fibrous, wiry, abun- 

 dant. Rootstock small, tufted. Fronds numerous, ever- 

 green, produced in clusters from the crown ; stipes pale- 

 green, purplish-brown at the base, about equal in length 

 to the leafy part ; smooth ; leafy part simply pinnate, 

 with wedge-shaped pinnae sharply cleft on their upper 

 and broader sides, and placed in alternation on opposite 

 sides of the rachis to which they are attached by short, 

 narrow stems, which broaden and are merged, almost 

 insensibly, into the wider, leafy part of the pinnag. 

 Fructification borne upon the under sides of the wedge- 

 shaped, leafy parts of the pinnae in elongated or 

 " linear," as they are called sori, which run in parallel 

 directions towards the terminal points of the pinnse. 

 Each elongated sorus is covered when young by a long, 

 green indusium, and is then distinct. But when the 

 indusia are ruptured by the expansion, at ripening, of the 

 sporangia, they burst and are thrown off, and the sori 

 become confluent, covering almost the entire under 

 sides of the pinnae with a mass of rich, dark-brown 

 spore-cases. 



HABITATS. Rocky crevices similar to those in which 

 Asplenium septentrionah grows. The two species are 

 often found growing together. 



WHERE FOUND. In England, only in the counties of 

 Cumberland, Northumberland, and Somerset ; in Cum- 

 berland, rocks at Borrowdale and on Helvellyn ; in 

 Northumberland, on the Kyloe basaltic rocks ; and in 



