FERNS OP GKBAT BRITAIN. 69 



buds, we see numbers of little undeveloped fronds 

 coiled up and thickly covered with their light brown 

 scales, peeping from among the decayed leaves, which 

 will soon be swept aU away by the spring breezes. 

 By the end of April, when the primrose needs no longer 

 to be searched for, these little scrolls are unfolding 

 too, and then they hang down, forming the figure of 

 the shepherd's crook, a dozen or more of the young 

 fronds often in one clump. They live throughout the 

 summer, towering above the hedge or woodland flowers, 

 but they cannot bear the frost. There are several 

 varieties of the Lady Fern. In the common form the 

 lanceolate frond has a staUc usually about a third of 

 its whole length, and is scaly at the base. It is twice 

 pinnate, the pinnse being lanceolate and generally taper- 

 ing. These are always again pinnate, the bases of these 

 pinnules being sometimes connected by a narrow wing. 

 The pinnules are lobed, often so deeply cut as to be 

 pinnatifid, and the lobes are sharply toothed. The 

 veining of this fern is very distinct. A mid-vein winds 

 through each pinnule, alternate smaller veins arising 

 from it, and these being again branched in an alternate 

 direction. On the lowest branch, on the side nearest 

 the top of the pinnule, about midway between the mid- 

 vein and the margin, is the oblong slightly curving 

 cluster of capsules, covered by the indusium of the 

 same form. Both the cluster and its coveriag, on the 

 maturity of the capsules, contract at the ends and swell 

 in the middle, thus becoming more curved, and assum- 

 ing a more roundish form than in an earher stage ; the 

 indusium also is then kidney-shaped. On ond side 



