POLYSTICHUM I.ONCHITIS. 



107 



The radicles are long, strong, black, and 

 wiry : the caudex is woody, erect, or recum- 

 bent through age, and long- enduring, its Upper 

 extremity a brown, chaffy, but not very 

 salient crown, composed of the undeve- 

 loped fronds : the stipes is very short, 

 scarcely separable from the rachis, 

 and clothed with reddish, chaffy 

 scales : the frond is linear, pinnate : 

 pinnae crowded, overlapping, some- 

 what crescent-shaped, auricled on 

 the upper side, next the stem, ser- 

 rated and acutely spined ; each pin- 

 na is sessile, but not decm'rent, set 

 on obliquely with the rachis, and 

 twisted, a character I have attempted 

 to represent at page 103 ; this twist- 

 ed character is least apparent in the 

 Welch specimens, which have also a 

 more lax habit than the Scotch and 

 Irish plants ; the "Welch specimens, 

 moreover, are generally pendulous, 

 the Scotch and Irish ones more usu- 

 ally erect ; there is also a difference 

 in the colour, that of the English 

 and Welch specimens approaching 

 the ordinary hue of P. aculeatum, 

 whUe that of the Scotch and Irish 

 specimens is full, rich, shining green, 



