



FERNS. 525 
The Spleenworts are all delicate and some are pretty little 
ferns, so-called on account of some supposed efficacy in the 
diseases of the spleen. They are technically called Asplen- 
ium, and although seven of the British species are unknown 
to our flora, yet we have two that are identical, and seven 
besides which are not British. The Wall-rue (A. ruta-mu- 
_ taria) may be found in our limestone cliffs, at Burlington, 
= Vermont, and Trenton Falls, N. Y., and quite as pretty as 
= in North Wales. The common Wall Spleenwort (A. tricho- 
a manes) is common about Salem under the shaded rocks of 
_ the Great Pasture, and known by its shining black leaf- 
= stalks and simply pinnate oval leaflets. In England where it 
__ 1s plentiful, it is sometimes called the Maidenhair Spleen- 
Wort, a “not uncommon species being widely -distributed 
over the British isles, but amongst rocks, old stone-walls 
ind ruins it is most abundant. The walls of loose stones 
piled on each other, which skirt the roads in North Wales, 
are often green for miles with tufts of this fern.” There are 
Dine or ten varieties in cultivation, the most delicate being 
z the A. incisum, the leaflets deeply cut, “each of which is 
g, long, narrow lobes.” In Scotland 
















olds. For the British Sea Spleenwort, Rock Spleenwort, 
btistly Spleenwort, Black Spleenwort, we must content our- 
selves With the New England and Western Pinnatifid, Ebony- 
stemmed in two species, the Mountain, the Narrow-leaved 
and the Thelypteris-like Spleenworts, which will reward the 
teoker, if haply he may find them all, and of some he can- 
tot fail. But of the Hart’s-tongue Fern, “found everywhere, 
on hedge banks, old walls, on the sides of wells, and in a va- 
„y of situations, accommodating itself to the various con- 
ditions in which itis placed ; easily grown and indispensable 
to the out-door fernery and the greenhouse, small plants 
gto Wing with effect in a closed case ;” the Hart’s-tongue, I 
PION to acknowledge is a very rare American fern, and 
oftener to be seen in greenhouses than in its native haunts. 
