3° 



formed on quite similar lines, that is, with fronds otherwise 

 of the quite common type, but with the pinnae or side 

 divisions squared off and the midrib projecting as a 

 slender thorn. With the Lady Fern, the variety A.f.f. 

 excuvvens carries the type further, the pinnules or secondary 

 divisions being squared and thorned, and through its 

 spores some forms have been raised with a generally spiny 

 appearance, but it must be admitted that carried so far, 

 the plant approaches dangerously near to the section we 

 have jokingly christened " hownotto doitums." Polysti- 

 chum angidare has had too much respect for itself to err 

 much in this direction, but has furnished an example or 

 two which hardly merit naming. Scolopendviurn vulgare, 

 the Hartstongue, has, however, gone perhaps the farthest 

 of all ferns in furnishing variants on truncate lines of 

 diverse characters, as indeed might have been expected of a 

 fern which has certainly eclipsed all other ferns in the 

 world in the diversity of types which it has assumed. 

 The best known variety of the truncate section is " pera- 

 ferens " or "pocket bearing/' in which the frond is very 

 much shortened, the tip being abruptly ended and the 

 midrib projecting as a horn. In addition to this, however, 

 the leafy part of the frond has apparently endeavoured to 

 continue growth, the result being the formation of a pouch 

 or pocket from the centre of which the horn protrudes. 

 This pocket, however, in one variety is in the front, in 

 another at the back of the frond, and is also varied in 

 shape in different varieties, though fairly constant in type 

 in any one. These varieties breed fairly true from spores, 

 and as they have been successfully crossed with branched 

 and tasselled forms, largely by the late Mr. E. J. Lowe, 

 an endless number of strange and often weird varieties has 

 been obtained, in all of which the peculiar truncatum or 

 abrupt and thorned mode of termination is evident. Out- 

 side the true " peraferens" type there are others in which 



