OPHIOGLOSSUM LUSITANICUir. 333 



to Mr. Wolsey for the kind and prompt manner in which he 

 gave me every information respecting this fern, and liberally 

 supplied me with specimens, both living and dried. 



The roots are large in proportion to the size of the plant ; 

 they are brittle, succulent, and spread horizontally amongst the 

 radicles of the herbage, from a somewhat elongate -ovate perpen- 

 dicular caudex : from the crown of this caudex, accompanied 

 by a few scarcely perceptible, withered, scale-like spathes, rises 

 an erect stipes, which, in all my specimens, is divided below the 

 surface of the soil into a barren and a fertile branch : the bar- 

 ren branch is generally linear, but sometimes lanceolate, and 

 always obtuse at the apex ; in one specimen, represented in the 

 middle figure at page 331, there are two barren branches, the 

 lower decidedly lanceolate, the upper, decidedly linear ; in a 

 second specimen, represented in the left-hand figure, the bar- 

 ren frond is truncated, or cut off, as it were, at half its length, 

 and the upper portion replaced by three dehiscing capsules in 

 a row : the fertile branch rises in a perfectly erect position, and 

 is composed of a delicate stipes, which is very slender at its 

 base, and gradually incrassated upwards, until it terminates in 

 a sublinear, or, perhaps, rather subobclavate apiculate spike, 

 which is composed of a fleshy central column, and two series 

 of imbedded capsules, which have a spherical internal cavity : 

 exteriorly they are amorphous, but, dehiscing transversely, 

 exhibit themselves very conspicuously. The entire plant is 

 very small ; the figures represent it of the exact size, the mid- 

 dle one of a large individual, the others of the ordinary size. 



In raising the question whether this be a species distinct 

 from vulgatum, we have to look at other circumstances besides 

 its confessedly similar appearance, and the existence of inter- 

 mediate forms. In the first place, let us glance at the very 

 unattractive, and somewhat unbotanical, character of magni- 

 tude. The metropolis of this fern may perhaps be the Atlan- 

 tic islands, but it also occurs abundantly on the shores and 

 islands of the Mediterranean, in Greece, Italy, France, Spain, 



