3 <;6 LOMARIE&. PART n. 



and often accompanying Asplenium Ruta-muraria and 

 Asplenium Trichomanes. Like other natural importa- 

 tions from the south, it is found most abundantly on the 

 western maritime counties that receive the more direct 

 flow of the tide, and has progressed slowly towards the 

 northern and central parts of the kingdom. In Scotland 

 it has not yet traversed beyond Perth, and is still re- 

 garded as a rare species ; while in Ireland its copious 

 distribution seems to indicate an earlier arrival.' 



The group Vittariese, consisting mainly of Vittaria and 

 Tseniopsis, is essentially equatorial or sub-equatorial. 

 The plants have narrow ribbon-like fronds, with naked 

 sori immersed in the very margin of the frond, in a more 

 or less sunken furrow, there being no indusium. 



The Blechnum Spicant, which may be taken as a 

 type of the Lomariese, is a very ornamental fern, with its 

 dark green, linear-lanceolate fronds, of two forms ; the 

 fertile ones erect, pectinate, pinnate, with distinct narrow 

 linear and acute pinnae, while the barren ones are smooth, 

 spreading, and pinnatifid, with broad linear, blunt, ap- 

 proximate lobes. The rachis is generally smooth, and 

 of a dark purple hue, its leafless portion being shaggy 

 with membranaceous scales. The barren fronds lie on 

 the ground in the winter, while the fertile ones are erect, 

 bear fruit from May to October, and wither when they 

 have shed their spores. In the fertile fronds the lateral 

 veins are alternate, and extend obliquely upwards, about 

 half way towards the margin of the lobe, when, by a 

 sudden turn, each runs parallel to the mid-vein, and 

 anastomoses with the one above it, thus forming an ap- 

 parently longitudinal vein on which the sorus is placed, 

 so as to form a line on each side of the mid-vein ; 

 this is covered with a continuous indusium like a hem, 

 which opens on the interior side (fig. 65). In the barren 

 fronds the veins do not anastomose at the margins 

 of the lobe. This species is common in almost every 



