1 66 



BRITISH FERNS 



and transferred to a garden, will continue to grow year after year. 

 It has no decorative value at all. A diminutive form has been 



Fig. 1 86. 0. lusilankum. 



found in Guernsey, which is considered to be a distinct species, 

 0. lusitanicum (Fig. 186). 



OSMUNDA REGALIS (The Royal Fern) 



(Plate XXIII) 



This grand Fern stands alone as a species in this country, and 

 attains a great size, ten or eleven feet high, and in the upper reaches 

 of the Dart we have seen it so robust and abundant as to resemble 

 coppices at a short distance, the ground being a solid mass of the 

 massive rootstocks, clothed densely with aerial rootlets like huge 

 sponges. It exists in many places where moist and almost boggy 



Osmunda regalis (pinnule). 



conditions prevail, and attains its largest size on the banks of streams, 

 on islands in the lake districts, and similar habitats where its 

 feet, so to speak, are bathed in moisture. Its huge fronds spring in 

 clusters from definite centres of the rootstocks described, and are 

 twice or thrice divided into pinnee as shown in Fig. 187, the fruc- 

 tification being confined to the tips of the fronds where the leafy 

 portion disappears, and is replaced by branched masses of un- 

 covered spore capsules which, when ripe, are of a brownish tint, 



