272 



THE BOOK OF CHOICE FERNS. 



upright, straw-coloured stalks 2ft. to 3ft. long and glossy. The terminal 

 leaflet, 1ft. to Ifffe. long, is cut down nearly or quite to the rachis into 

 numerous* narrow lobes on each side, finely toothed when barren. The upper 

 lateral leaflets, Gin. long, are not cut down to the rachis ; the lower ones 

 equal in size and cutting the terminal one, and make the frond 2ft. to 3ft. 

 broad at the base. All are of a somewhat leathery texture and naked on 

 both sides, and the spore masses fall short of the points of the segments. 

 — Hooker, Species Filicum, ii., p. 223. Nicholson, Dictionary of Gardening, 

 iii., p. 242. 



P. elegans — e'-leg-ans (elegant). A garden name for P. nobilis. 



Fig. 74. Pteris ensiformis 

 (nearly nat. size). 



P. ensiformis — en-sif-or'-mis (sword-shaped), Burmann. 



This greenhouse species, of small dimensions, better known under the name 

 of P. crenata, has a wide range of habitat, being found from the Himalayas 

 to Ceylon, Chusan, and the Loo-Choo Islands, southward to Tropical Australia, 

 and eastward to Samoa and Fiji. Its fronds, borne on slender, erect, straw- 

 coloured stalks 3in. to Gin. long, are Gin. to 12in. long, oin. to Gin. broad, and 

 composed of a long terminal leaflet and from two to four pairs of lateral ones, 

 much resembling those of P. cretica, but the fertile ones, slightly compound, 

 are cut down to the rachis below into two to six sharply-toothed leafits 

 (Fig. 74, reduced from Col. Beddome's " Ferns of Southern India," by the kind 



