130 HISTORY OF BRITISH PERNS. 



produces a spreading circle of triangular fronds, the stipes 

 of which, of about the same length as the leafy part, are 

 thickly clothed with small, narrow, jagged, pale-coloured 

 scales. The fronds are bipinnate, the lowest pair of pinnae 

 always longer and larger than the rest, and the pinnules on 

 the inferior side of the pinnae larger than those on the supe- 

 rior side. The pinnules are of an oblong- ovate figure, and 

 the lowest of them often divided again into a series of oblong 

 lobes, for the most part decurrent, but sometimes slightly 

 stalked ; the margin is cut into short spinous-pointed teeth. 



The veins of the pinnules are alternately branched from a 

 sinuous midvein, and these venules give off two or three 

 alternate veinlets, the lowest anterior one being the sorus. 

 The exact ramification of the veins depends upon the degree 

 in which the pinnules or lobes are divided. The fructifica- 

 tion is distributed over the whole under surface, the sori 

 being pretty evenly distributed in two lines along each pin- 

 nule or lobe ; they are covered by small reniform indusia, 

 which have their margin uneven, and fringed with small, 

 round, stalkless glands. The whole frond is covered with 

 similar glandular bodies. 



This Fern, which is most abundant in Ireland and the 

 western parts of England, occurs in damp, sheltered woods, 



