FERNS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 105 



terminated by a linear oblong cluster of fructification. 

 Our only British species of this genus is easily known 

 from all other native ferns by its fan-shaped leaflets, but 

 the characteristics of the genus are to be found in the 

 veining and the marginal fructification. The plant is 

 called True Maiden-hair, to distinguish it from some 

 other ferns which share with it its familiar name. It is 

 one of the lovehest of our native plants, and in its wild 

 state is among the most rare ; but it is famiharly known 

 to fern-lovers, because it is one of the most frequent 

 ferns grown in closed glass cases, where it attains great 

 perfection, and where it is often the companion of 

 another species brought from Madeira, which, though 

 having larger fronds, is not more elegant. The main 

 stalk of our Maiden-hair is seldom thicker than a 

 packthread, and the little stalks which support the thin 

 fan-shaped pinnules are so slight and elastic, so black 

 and hair-hke, as to have gained for the fern its spe- 

 cific name. Its slender creeping rhizome is shaggy, 

 with black hair-like scales, and the base of the stipes 

 is of a rich red-brown colour. The fronds, which grow 

 in lax tufts, make their appearance about May, and are 

 matured by June ; they are usually about six or seven, 

 but sometimes twelve inches in height. They are either 

 twice or thrice pinnate. The pinnae, or branches, diverge 

 alternately from the stalks ; the little leaf-hke pinnules 

 are also alternate, and each is placed on a separate stalk. 

 The form of the leaflets, though varying much in dif- 

 ferent situations, is yet more or less fan-shaped, the 

 terminal one being often wedge-shaped. The margin 

 is lobed, the barren lobes are serrated, but the edges of 



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