82 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



glandular form of L. spimilosa. Most, authors place it as a variety 

 of L. dilatata, with which at least Mr. Newman's original plant 

 seems to agree in the caudex, and certainly does completely in the 

 finely muricated spores and gland-fringed indusium. But the lamina 

 is narrower and less divided, the pinnules having their segments con- 

 nected quite as much, or even more so than, in spinulosa. 



From L. remota it differs in having a much shorter frond in propor- 

 tion to its width, and with fewer and broader pinnae, with distinctly 

 mucronate teeth. The lowest pinna? of L. remota do not present such 

 a broadly and obliquely triangular outline, as remota has not the first 

 and second, or even the third pinnule on the lower side of the pinna 

 much larger than those on the upper side. The indusium of L. 

 remota is also firmer and more convex than that of L. glandulosa, and 

 the spores are bluntly tubercled, not finely muricated. 



I cannot help suspecting that L. glandulosa is a hybrid between 

 L. spinulosa and L. dilatata. \Vere it as abundant as either of the 

 two, instead of being very scarce we might consider it as a form from 

 which L. spinulosa on one side, and L. dilatata on the other, were 

 diverging ; and the same might be said of L. uliginosa, from which 

 L. cristata diverges in one direction and spinulosa in the other ; and 

 lastly, we have L. remota, which connects L. spinulosa, or (as seems 

 to me more probable) dilatata with L. Filix-mas. Surely it would 

 be difficult to accept an aggregate species containing Filix-mns and 

 dilatata. Dr. Goppert, in Cohn's * Kryptogamen Flora von Schlesien,' 

 makes dilatatum, spinulosum, and cristatum subspecies of Aspidium 

 spinulosum, but he makes Filix-mas with this form A. remotum a 

 distinct species, which seems to me an untenable position. 



Bennett's Sh ield-fern. 



SPECIES X.-L ASTREA DILATATA. Fred. 



Plate 1857. 

 Babenh. Crypt. Vase. Europ. Exsicc. No. 40. 

 L. multiflora, Neicm. Hist. Brit. Ferns, ed. ii. p. 216. 

 Xeplirodium dilatatum, Desv. Hook, fil. Stud. Fl. p. 466. 

 N. spinulosum, fi. dilatatum, Hook. & Bah. Syn. Fil. ed. ii. p. 275. 

 Aspidium dilatatum, Sicartz. Sm. Eng. Bot. No. 1461 ; and Eng. Fl. Vol. IV. p. 293. 



MSde, Fil. Europ. p. 136. Rabenh. 1. c. No. 40. 

 A. spinulosum, a. multiflorum, Hook. & Am. Brit. Fl. ed. viii. p. 586. 

 A. spinulosum, var. dilatatum, Fries, Summ. Veg. Scand. p. 82. 

 Polystichum spinulosum, (3. dilatatum, Koch, Syn. Fl. Germ, et Helv. ed. ii. p. 979. 



Grcn, & Goch: Fl. de Fr. Vol. III. 

 P. multiflorum, Both, Fl. Germ. Vol. III. p. 87. 

 Polypodium multiflorum, Both, Cat. Bot. Fasc. i. p. 35. 

 Lophodium multiflorum, Neicm. Phyt. 1851, p. 371, and App. xvii. ; and Hist. Brit. 



Ferns, ed. iii. p. 148. 



Caudex short, very thick, separating into few divisions which arc 



