ASPLENIUM. 67 



on walls, to a foot and a half and even two feet including 

 the stipes, when it occurs on shady hedge-banks in con- 

 genial soil. The fronds are triangular, more or less elon- 

 gated at the point, the shining dark purple stipes being 

 often as long as, or longer than, the leafy portion, but in 

 stunted plants growing in sterile situations very much 

 shorter; they grow erect or drooping, according to the 

 situations in which they occur. They are bipinnate, or some- 

 times tripinnate ; the pinnse pinnate, triangular- ovate, drawn 

 out at the point, the lower pair always longer than the next 

 above them. The pinnules, especially those on the larger 

 pinna3, are again pinnate; the alternate pinnules being 

 deeply lobed, and the margins sharply serrate. 



The fronds are of a thick leathery texture, with numerous 

 veins. To each pinnule there is a distinct midvein or prin- 

 cipal vein, bearing simple or branched veuules, on which 

 the sori are produced. All the ultimate divisions of the 

 fronds, as well as all the larger lobes, have midveins pro- 

 ducing these simple or branched venules, and these bear the 

 sori near their junction with the midvein, so that the sori 

 are placed near the centre of every pinnule or lobe. At 

 first the sori are distinct, and have the elongate narrow 

 form common to this genus, but as they become older they 



