FILICES. 147 



usually about as long as the lamina, slender, wiry, purplish-black, 

 furnished at the base with a tuft of very narrowly-linear scales 

 acuminated into slender points. Lamina submembranous, trans- 

 lucent, pea-green, dim, glabrous, rhombic-ovate or rhombic-lanceolate 

 or triangular-ovate or oblong, bipinnate or tripinnate, at least below ; 

 ultimate pinnules shortly-stalked, obovate or reniform or oblanceolate 

 or lunate, inversely deltoid or wedgeshaped or subtruncate at the 

 base, more or less deeply inciso-crenate or palmatifid. Sori trans- 

 versely oblong or transversely strapshaped, more or less curved, with 

 the convexity of the curve pointing towards the base of the pinnae. 

 General and partial rachides capillary, purplish-black. 



On the faces of cliffs, on limestone rocks, and in caves, usually 

 near the sea, and high, ascending to a height of 800 feet or more in 

 the south-west of Ireland. Rare and very local. Near St. Ives, Pen- 

 zance, and other places in Cornwall ; in several places about Ilfra- 

 combe ; Torquay, Mr. W. A. Hayne ; and near Berry Head, Devon ; 

 " Dorsetshire, Miss Payne," Wats. ; Coombe Down, near Bath, Mr. E. 

 J. Low ; Dunraven, and Barry Island, and East Aberthaw, Glamorgan, 

 said to have occurred near Stonehaven, Kincardineshire, but doubtless 

 this is an error ; also in Arran, from confounding Clyde and Galway 

 Islands. Glenmeay, Isle of Man. In the west of Ireland in several 

 places, between Tralee and Dingle, co. Kerry ; several places in co. 

 Clare, Isle of Arran, Galway, and perhaps further northward in the 

 w T est of Ireland. 



England, Ireland. Perennial. Summer, Autumn. 



Rootstock from the thickness of a crow-quill to that of a goose- 

 quill. Fronds variable in size, erect when small, drooping when large. 

 The smallest British specimens I have are from Ilfracombe, in which 

 the stipes is § inch long, the lamina 1 inch by J inch broad, and the 

 pinnules about ^ inch each way. Glamorganshire specimens have a 

 stipes 1 to 3 inches long, and a lamina from 2 by § inch to 6 inches 

 by 2 inches; while specimens from the Isle of Arran, Galway, sent 

 me by Dr. Perceval Wright, have the stipes as much as 9 inches long, 

 and a lamina 6 inches by 4 inches, and pinnules ^ to § long by § 

 broad. The pinnules are covered with a waxy bloom from which 

 water rolls off in drops without wetting the surface — hence the name 

 of the genus. 



There is a good deal of variation both in the shape and in the 

 degree of incision of the pinnules ; but they vary to a considerable 

 extent, even on fronds from the same caudex. 



Maidenhair. 



v 2 



