76 HISTORY OF BRITISH FERNS. 



ASPLENIUM MARINUM, TAwfUKU*. The Sea Spleenwort. 

 (Plate XIY. fig. 1.) 



This very handsome evergreen Pern, like the Lanceolate 

 Spleenwort, is a maritime species, occurring profusely on our 

 south-western rocky coasts and in the Channel Isles, and 

 extending to Prance and Spain, to Madeira and the Canaries. 

 In cultivation it thrives most luxuriantly in the atmosphere 

 of a damp hot-house, where it forms, in a comparatively 

 short time, a dense mass of the deepest green, and often 

 reaching a foot and a half in height. In a cold frame, if 

 kept closed, well-established plants will continue in health, 

 progressing slowly, and never acquiring half the size of those 

 grown in heat. In the climate of London it does not pros- 

 per, nor, as far as we know, survive, if planted on exposed 

 rock-work. It is a tufted-growing species, with linear or 

 linear-lanceolate fronds, usually six or eight inches long, of 

 the deepest glossy green, with a smooth, rather short, dark 

 brown stipes. The fronds are simply pinnate, with stalked 

 pinnse, connected at their base by a narrow wing which 

 extends along the rachis ; their form is either obtusely 

 ovate or oblong, unequal at the base, the anterior base being 

 much developed, while the posterior is, as it were, cut away, 

 the margin being either serrated or crenated. 



