84 BOI/roX 8 WOODSIA. 



After so ample a description as that already quoted from 

 Bolton, it may perhaps be thought unnecessary to give one of 

 my own ; but I scarcely think myself justified in such a depar- 

 ture from my usual course as to omit it. The radicles are 

 black, wiry, and branched : the caudex is tufted, large in pro- 

 portion to the entire plant, and apparently very enduring. In 

 its vernation this species, as Mr. WoUaston informs me, differs 

 essentially from Woodsia Ilvensis : it forms a crest of simply 

 circinate fronds, much more thinly clothed than Ilvensis with 

 buff-coloured scales, and its clusters of capsules are very con- 

 spicuous, even in its youngest state, and immediately it begins 

 to unfold : unlike those of Ilvensis, its fronds are almost per- 

 sistent, the plant appearing to be scarcely ever in a state of 

 perfect rest. The stipes is slender, and nearly smooth ; it has 

 a few small, scattered, and pointed scales, and some very slen- 

 der articulated hairs, amounting in a very young state to a fine 

 pubescence, but both these appear to be easily removed, since 

 in nearly all the mature dried specimens I have seen, they were 

 entirely wanting : the stipes is articulated, like that of the pre- 

 ceding species ; and I have a specimen which has two articula- 

 tions, a circumstance which I imagine is of unusual occurrence. 

 The shape of the frond is long, narrow, linear, and pinnate : 

 the pinnee are perfectly separate, sometimes distant, almost in- 

 variably alternate, and in shape somewhat triangular, the angles 

 being rounded ; they are lobed ; the lobes are five or seven in 

 number, and very obtuse ; the first superior lobe is sometimes 

 considerably larger than the rest, and slightly notched ; the 

 apex of the frond is pinnatifid and pointed : the margins and 

 uiider surface of the pinnae are sparingly fui'nished with articu- 

 lated hairs. The venation is rather anomalous : no joarticular 

 vein appears to possess a very decided superiority over the 

 others; they are occasionally simple, but generally divided into 

 two or three branches ; they do not quite reach the margin of 

 the pinna, and the clusters of capsules, when present, are pla- 

 ced at their extremity : figure a in the cut on the opposite page 

 represents a pinna of this species, with the capsules in situ ; 

 figure b shows the venation, and the points of attachment of 



