NEPHRODIUM. 



509 



N. (Lastrea) Filix-mas — Las'-tre-a ; Fil'-ix-mas (Male Fern), Richard. 



The " Male Fern," or, as it is also sometimes called, the " Common 

 Buckler Fern," botanically known as Nephrodium Filix-mas of Richard, 

 Hooker, and R. T. Lowe, Lastrea Filix-mas of Presl, Babington, Moore, 

 Sowerby, and others, Aspidium Filix-mas of Swartz, Mettenius, Fee, E. J. 

 Lowe, and others, Polypodium Filix-mas of Linna3us, Bolton, and Hudson, 

 and Polystichum. Filix-mas of De Candolle, Roth, Koch, and Ledebour, is, 

 of all our nati^T Ferns, the one w^hich occurs in most districts. According 

 to Lowe, "it is equally common in all the counties of England, Scotland, 

 Wales, and Ireland, the Channel Islands, the Northern Islands, and Western 

 Islands, ascending the hills in Scotland to the elevation of 1500ft." Its 

 habitat, however, is not limited to the British Islands, for it is of most 

 cosmopolitan character, being found throughout Europe, on the Continent 

 of which, Correvon states in his " Fougeres Rustiques " (p. 133), it is one 

 of the commonest of all Ferns. It occurs in Asia, from Lapland to Japan 

 and the Malayan Islands, ascending the Himalayas to 1500ft, ; it is also 

 found in some form or other in Africa, Algeria, Madeira, and the Azores ; 

 while we have it on the authority of Eaton that in America it is common 

 from Greenland along the Rocky Mountains and Andes to Peru, as well as 

 in Canada, Colorado, &c. 



The handsome fronds of this species are broadest in the middle, 

 narrowing towards the base, and to a sharp point at their summit ; they are 

 produced from a large, somewhat upright stem of a w^oody nature, covered 

 wdth thick, brown, overlapping scales, w^hich also extend to the strong stalks. 

 They are 2ft. to 3ft. long and Sin. to 12in. broad, and are furnished with 

 spear-shaped leaflets 4in. to 6in. long, about lin. broad, cut down very nearly 

 to the rachis (stalk of the leafy portion) into close, blunt, regular, nearly entire 

 lobes of a papery texture, the lower ones rather shorter than the others. 

 The abundant and large sori (spore masses) are covered wdth a large, convex 

 indusium. — Hooker, British Ferns, t. 15. Nicholson, Dictionary of Gardening, 

 ii., p. 440. Loioe, Our Native Ferns, i., t. 26. Eaton, Ferns of North 

 America, i., t. 41. Correvon, Les Fougeres Rustiques, p. 133. 



The Male Fern is of an extremely variable character — so much so that, 

 besides the almost endless varieties that are know^n to exist and most of 

 which have been found growing spontaneously, Mr. G. B. WoUaston, of 



