LAST11EA. 133 



upright, and from one to two feet in height. It is perhaps 

 the most elegantly divided member of its family, the pin- 

 nules being all doubly and very evenly toothed. The fronds 

 issue from the crown of a comparatively thick stem, and are 

 annual in their duration, greeting the approach of summer 

 with the fresh green of youth, and shrinking dead and 

 shrivelled from the icy touch of winter. There are two 

 forms of frond the one narrowly triangular, the other lan- 

 ceolate, and they are bipinnate, with narrow tapering pinnse, 

 and oblong blunt pinnules, which are cut into broad rounded 

 segments, again notched into a varying number of pointed 

 but not spinulose teeth. The stipes is densely scaly. 



The veining is very similar to that of the large variety of 

 Filix-maSj the pinnules having a flexuous midvein, with 

 alternate venules again pinnately branched. The clusters 

 of spore-cases are borne on the lowest anterior branch of each 

 venule, that is, on the lowest veinlet on the side towards the 

 apex of the pinnule, and they are covered by a kidney- 

 shaped indusium, which does not soon fall away. Over the 

 fronds are scattered numerous small sessile glands, which, 

 when slightly bruised, give out a faint and not unpleasant 

 odour. 



This Fern seems confined to the limestone districts of the 



