544 



THE BOOK OF CHOICE FERNS. 



graceful and distinct from one another, are, or have been, known in English 

 collections (Mr. P. Neill Fraser, of Edinburgh, in his list published March, 

 1865, enumerates 243 forms of the Lady Fern). The scope of the present 

 work not allowing for the full description of all of them, we have limited 

 ourselves to the most distinct and constant of these forms, which rightly 

 or wrongly are by some people termed simple monstrosities. These, which 

 for some unknown reason are naturally produced much more abundantly in 

 the British Islands than in any other country, should for safety be propagated 

 exclusively by the division of the crowns, an operation which is best 

 performed in February or March, before vegetation commences. 



A. F.-f. acrocladon — ac-roc'-lad-on (summit-branched), Moore. 



This is one of the most beautiful, if not indeed the most remarkably- 

 crested, of all known forms of the Lady Fern. It was originally found in 

 a wild state growing by a roadside on the moor-track between Byland and 

 Rivaulx Abbeys, in Yorkshire. One plant of it only was discovered there, 

 and no other has since been found wild anywhere else. The most singular 

 thing in connection with this find is that it happened in a locality where 

 some other Lady Ferns were growing, all of which, however, were quite 

 normal; and although various botanists have searched the station many times, 

 no second plant of acrocladon has been discovered, nor has even a slight 

 divergence from the normal form of Athyrium been found in that locality. 

 Although it is usually known as a variety of small dimensions, seldom 

 exceeding lift, in height, Mr. A. Clapham, to whom it was presented by the 

 discoverer, could boast in 1863 of having a specimen (the original plant) 

 fully 2ft. high and as much in diameter, a mass of exquisite foliage somewhat 

 resembling that of the more widely- distributed A. F.-f. crispum, but more 

 vigorous and much more erect in growth. The fronds, of no really definite 

 form, are borne on stalks stout at the base, where they divide hear the crown, 

 the divisions becoming repeatedly forked without any regularity whatever 

 (Fig. 93) and forming a densely-ramified mass of foliage of a peculiarly 

 light green colour. The lower part of the frond is very narrow, and the 

 extremities of the divisions and those of the irregular pinna? (leaflets) are 

 all densely tasselled or crested ; in the upper portion of the frond, which 

 is freely branched, the pinna; and pinnules (leafits) are unsymmetrically 



