182 THE LADY FERN AND ITs KIN. 
length of three feet. The crosiers are of interest from 
the colours they present early in the year. In some va- 
rieties the stipes are a clear wine colour with light, thin 
scales and contrast very prettily with the yellow-green of 
the uncoiling blades. The blades themselves are on long 
stipes and are exceedingly variable in the cutting of the 
pinnules. Nearly a hundred varieties from Europe have 
been described. The com- 
monest form with us is prob- 
ably that with oblong-ovate, 
acute, twice pinnate fronds 
with the secondary pinne 
Fruiting pinnule enlarged. again lobed or toothed. The 
primary pinne are about oblong-lanceolate, acute or 
acuminate, and set at sufficient distances from each other 
to render the frond light and graceful. Mr. B. D. Gilbert 
has recently identified some twenty varieties from Amer- 
ican localities, none of which are the results of cultivation. 
This species is noted for having pinnules missing here 
and there throughout the fronds. 
Ordinarily there is scarcely any difference in the ap- 
pearance of fertile and sterile fronds. The sori are borne 
in a double row 
on each pinnule 
and the indusia 
are attached to 
the frond by a 
curving edge. 
A form from sunny thickets. 
When young they extend in the shape of a horse-shoe 
across the veins which bear them. The novice who ex- 
amines them at this stage of their growth may jump to 
the conclusion that his plant is some species of Aspzdzum 
but later the sori become almost straight as in the true 
