SCOL OPENDRIUM. 



321 



is abundant, generally more so towards the extremity. The linear (narrow) 

 spore masses are mostly disposed in parallel pairs, oblique with regard to the 

 midrib, and of a brownish-black colour which has a most pleasing effect, the 

 contrast with the bright green tint of the frond being very striking. — Hooker, 

 Species Filicum, iv., p. 1 ■ British Ferns, t. 37 ; Icones Flantarum, t. 488. 

 Nicholson, Dictionary of Gardening, iii., p. 393. Eaton, Ferns of North 

 America, i., t. 32. 'Lowe, Our Native Ferns, ii., t. 49. Correvon, Les 

 Fougeres rustiques, p. 119. 



The Hartstongue is readily propagated by division and is also reproduced 

 from spores, which, however, are exceedingly variable. The predisposition to 

 variation in this species is such that it is not unusual to find in a batch of 

 seedlings raised from spores gathered from the typical plant that the deviations 

 from the type are more numerous than the normal forms. As an illustration 

 of this we may here reproduce a statement made by Correvon, in his 

 "Fougeres rustiques" (p. 121): "In 1885 spores of S. vulgare, gathered in 

 the 'Jardin Alpin,' were by us sown in a pan — a sowing which caused us 

 the greatest surprise by its results. Very few of the young plants produced 

 had retained the characters peculiar to the normal or typical form ; the fronds 

 of many of them were lacerated along the edges, and of a much darker colour 

 than those of the type ; others, and these were the most numerous, had their 

 fronds divided and the stalks suddenly digitate. In some cases that division took 

 such a shape as to form a regular crest composed of pinnules and segments." 



The really distinct varieties of S. vulgare, either naturally produced or 

 resulting from cultivation, are very numerous, upwards of a hundred having 

 received first-class certificates at the Royal Horticultural Society's Meetings ; 

 and their various characters are so different from the normal form that a mere 

 description of the usual fronds gives a very inadequate idea of the extensive 

 variations found among the representatives of this species. The varieties 

 described below are those which are the most distinct and at the same time 

 the most ornamental, and most of these are to the present day found in 

 private collections. 



S. v. acrocladon — ac-roc'-lad-on (branched at the summit), Lowe. 



A variable form, originally found near Ambleside, with fronds normal 

 except at their summit, where they are divided into numerous finger-like lobes. 



VOL. III. v 



