238 



THE BOOK OF CHOICE FERNS. 



P. Y. bifidum— bif'-id-um (forked), Moore. 



A distinct and good variety, which has been found in various parts of 

 the Lake District, in Wales, on the Yorkshire Hills, at Arnside, near 

 Milnthorpe, in the Valley of the Conway, at Matlock, near Ambleside, at 

 Chaigeley Manor, near Clitheroe, &c. Its leaflets are variously forked, 

 occasionally three or four times cleft, sometimes almost branching and 

 developing into P. v. ramosum. Unfortunately, this variety is not of a very 

 constant nature, as Lowe states, in "Ferns British and Exotic" (vol. i., 

 p. 113), that several beautiful plants of it which he collected at Matlock 



lost nearly all their bifid character either under 

 pot-culture or when planted in the open Fernery. 

 He adds that in 1853 in a wood near Cromford, 

 Derbyshire, he came upon a patch half-a-dozen yards 

 square of P. v. bifidum, the fronds of which were 

 divided almost to the apex.— Lowe, Our Native 

 Ferns, i., fig. 12 ; Ferns British and Exotic, i., 

 p. 113. Moore, Nature - printed British Ferns. 

 Nicholson, Dictionary of Gardening, hi., p. 195. 



P. Y. cambricum — cam'-bric-um (Welsh), 

 Linnams. 



This may be considered, not only as the most 

 distinct form of Polypody, but also as one of the 

 most beautiful Ferns in cultivation. It is the true 

 plumose form of the species, is of a dense and very 

 pleasing habit, and is constantly barren. Its beautiful 

 fronds (Fig. 67), which are much thinner and more 

 delicate in texture than those of the normal plant, 

 attain sometimes ljft. in length and often measure 5in. in breadth. Through 

 their divisions being broadly toothed next to the midrib and divided into 

 strap-shaped segments, these fronds, which are broadly egg-shaped, are rendered 

 particularly plumose by the overlapping of the divisions, which gives the 

 plant a particularly leafy appearance so thoroughly different from anything else 

 in cultivation, that it seems more like a distinct species than a mere variety. 

 — Lowe, Our Native Ferns, L, fig. 13. Moore, Nature-printed British Ferns. 



Fig. 67. Frond of Polypodium 

 vulgare cambricum 

 (i nat. size). 



