436 OPHIOGLOSSALES 
and insertion of the parts could be accurately drawn. Now it is to be 
noted that not one of its spikes is actually marginal, but each is inserted 
upon the upper surface, just within the margin; that is most clearly 
so in the lower spikes, while the two lowest are seated near to the 
median line, and with their stalks so near to one another as to be even 
slightly united at the base. From the above specimens it will be sufficiently 
Fic. 238. 
Ophioglossum palmatum, L. Drawings, slightly reduced, of specimens in the Kew 
Herbarium (excepting ZB, which is in the British Museum), showing the various arrange- 
ments of fertile spikes, and their insertion as a rule intra-marginal. 
clear that though the fertile spikes may occasionally be marginal, the 
large majority of them are inserted upon the upper surface of the sterile 
frond, while the lowest are commonly most near to the median line. 
There is a rough, though not exact, parallelism between the number of 
fertile spikes on a frond and the number of lobes of the sterile portion. 
In Fig. 238 c there are two lobes of the latter, and a single fertile spike; 
in Fig. 238 p, four lobes of the sterile (two incompletely separate), and 
two fertile spikes; in Fig. 238 E, two lobes of the sterile frond, and 
three fertile spikes; in Fig. 238 F, seven ill-defined lobes of the sterile 
and eight fertile spikes; in Fig. 238 G, eight lobes of the sterile frond, 
