80 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



by the veins being less impressed above, but chiefly by the inclusium 

 being- firm and very convex, and retaining its shape like that of 

 L. Filix-mas instead of being thin, flat, and soon crumpled up when 

 the spore-cases swell and raise its edges. Still there can be no 

 doubt that it is a form connecting L. spinulosa and L. Filix-mas. 



Narrow Shield-fern. 



SPECIES (?) IX.— L ASTREA GLANDULOSA. Newman. 



Plate 1856. 

 Newman, Phyt. 1851, p. 256. 

 L. dilatata, var. glandulosa, Moore (in part ?), Handbk. Brit. Ferns, ed. ii. p. 124 ; and 



ed. iii. p. 127 ; Nat. Print. Brit. Ferns, 8vo. ed. Vol. I. p. 226 (in part). Bab. 



Man. Brit. Bot. ed. vii. p. 448. 

 Neplirodium dilatatum, var. glandulosum, Hook.fil. Stud. Fl. p. 466. 

 Lophodiuin glandulosum, Newm. Phyt. 1851, Ap. xviii. and Hist. Brit. Ferns, ed iii. 



p. 154. 

 L. glanduliferum, Newm. Phyt. 1851, p. 371 (a misprint for glandulosum ?) 



Caudex short, very thick, separating into few divisions or crowns, 

 which are very thick and erect or " creeping." Fronds all similar, 

 many produced from the extremity of each division or crown, sub-ever- 

 green, "semi-erect" (Newman). Stipes long (two-thirds to as long 

 as the lamina), stout, deeply channelled on the anterior face, con- 

 taining 5 vascular bundles, thickly sprinkled with minute clavate or 

 stalked glands and rather thickly clothed with broadly-ovate cuspidate 

 and lanceolate tapering entire pale brown nearly concolorous sub- 

 persistent scales. Lamina firm, dull green, sprinkled beneath with 

 very numerous clavate glands, narrowly oblong or lanceolate-oblong, 

 tapering more or less gradually towards the apex, abrupt at the base, 

 bipinnate or almost tripinnate ; lowest pair of pinnae unequally 

 triangular with the 2 basal pinnules on the lower side of the secondary 

 rachis much longer than those on the upper side, nearly as long as 

 the succeeding pair of pinnae ; the others becoming gradually longer 

 and narrower as far as a little below the middle of the lamina, after 

 which they at first gradually and then rapidly decrease in length ; 

 all of them shortly stalked, pinnate ; pinnules " flat or convex," lan- 

 ceolate-oblong ; those towards the base of the lamina shortly stalked 

 and pinnati partite, or sometimes almost pinnate ; those towards the 

 apex of the frond decurrent at the base ; ultimate segments adnate by 

 a broad base and decurrent on the lower side, oblong inciso-serrate, 

 with the teeth hooked upwards and strongly mucronate. Ultimate 

 veins rather faintly impressed on the upper surface, running to the 



