78 HISTOHY OF BRITISH FERNS. 



ASPLENIUM RUTA-MURARIA, Linntfus. The Eue-leaved 

 Spleen wort, or Wall Hue. 



Very diminutive, and not very attractive, occurring abun- 

 dantly on old walls, often in such situations little more than 

 an inch high. It grows in tufts, insinuating its wiry roots, 

 as is the case with all the mural species, into the crevices 

 and joints of the masonry, and is not easily removed from 

 such places in a condition suitable for planting. The fronds 

 are numerous, of a glaucous-green, varying between one 

 and six inches long, with a stipes about half the entire 

 length, the leafy part usually triangular in outline, and bi- 

 pinnate. The pinnce are alternate, with rhomboidal, or 

 roundish- ovate, or obovate pinnules, sometimes wedge-shaped 

 with the apex abruptly cut off. The more luxuriant fronds 

 are once more divided, so as to become almost tripinnate, 

 the pinnules being deeply pinnatifid, and the lobes of the 

 form of the ordinary pinnules. Occasionally in immature 

 specimens the fronds are only once pinnate, with pinnatifid 

 pinnae. The upper margins of the pinnules are irregularly 

 toothed. 



The veins are rather indistinct, and there is no inidvein, 

 but a series of veins arise from the base, becoming branched 

 in the progress towards the apex, the number of ultimate 



