ASPLENIUM VIEIDE. 247 



The radicles are fibrous, black, and extremely tender : the 

 caudex is black, scaly, and tufted : the fronds appear in May 

 and June, they arrive at maturity in August, and remain green 

 throughout the winter ; they are fertile only. The stipes is 

 half as long as the frond ; the basal portion is black or pur- 

 plish, the remainder, as well as the whole of the rachis, is of 

 a vivid green : the frond is narrow, long, linear, and simply 

 pinnate : the pinnae are not so numerous as in A. Trichomanes, 

 they are quadrate, but without angles, and are more or less 

 crenate at the margin ; they are for the most part placed alter- 

 nately, and are generally very distinct and distant, but I have 

 seen them crowded, as, for instance, in the plants from Ham 

 Bridge : they are attached to the rachis by their stalks only. 

 The lateral veins are either simple or forked ; they bear a long 

 linear cluster of capsules, and, when forked, the cluster is 

 almost invariably situated anterior to the fork : this appears to 

 me a very excellent diagnostic, and one by which this species 

 may readily be known from A. Trichomanes : some of the veias 

 reach the margin of the pinna. The clusters of capsules are at 

 first covered by a long white involucre, which soon disappears, 

 and they become a bright ferruginous confluent mass, occupy- 

 ing the middle of the pinna, and concealing the midvein : the 

 clusters, before their union, are usually six in number. 



The outline or circumscription of frond varies but little in 

 this fern, but it has an extraordinary tendency to produce bifid 

 or double fronds : the branching sometimes takes place at about 

 half the length of the stipes, as represented in one of the fronds 

 at page 243, sometimes at the junction of the stipes and rachis, 

 and sometimes in the rachis itself, and at any part thereof : in 

 an example in my possession this forkiag is threefold, or, to 

 use a more technical expression, the frond is thrice dichoto- 

 mously divided. The character was certainly formerly consi- 

 dered distinctive of the species, as will be seen by a reference 



