ASPLENIUM. 



617 



A. (Darea) multifidum — Da'-re-a ; mul-tif'-id-um (much- cleft), Bracken- 

 ridge. 



A strong-growing, stove species, native of Tahiti and the Fiji and Society 

 Islands. Its ample fronds, 2ft. to 3ft. long and 1ft. to ljft. broad, are borne 

 on stout, erect, grey, naked stalks lft. to ljft. long, slightly scaly at their 

 base only. The fronds, although remarkably large, have a very light 

 appearance owing to their being quadripinnatifid (four times divided nearly 

 to the midrib) ; they are of a leathery texture and are cut into spear-shaped 

 pinnules (leafits) which in their turn are subdivided into segments ; the 

 lowest segments are again cut down nearly to the stalk into close, spoon - 

 shaped, bluntly-toothed divisions, upon the margins of which the very small 

 sori (spore masses) are disposed, only one to each division. — Hooker, Species 

 Filicum, hi p. 212. 



A. multisectum — mul-tis-ec'-tum (much-cut). This is identical with 

 A. aspidioides. 



A. musaefolium — mu-sa3-fol / -i-uni (Musa-leaved). A variety of A. Nidus. 



A. (Euasplenium) myriophyllum— Eu-as-ple'-ni-um ; my-ri-oph-yh- 

 lum (myriad-leaved), Presl. 

 This remarkably elegant and pretty Fern, native of North America,' 

 where it is popularly known as the Milfoil Spleenwort, is, by Hooker and 

 Baker, classified as a variety of A. rhizophyllum of Kunze. Eaton, however, 

 in his splendid work " Ferns of North America," retains it as a species, 

 saying that "it is the most delicate and finely-divided of all our Aspleniums, 

 and need not be confounded with any other native species." In general 

 appearance it is much more like the popular A. cicutarium, also from 

 Florida, than A. rhizophyllum, the proliferous and distinctive character of this 

 latter species not being reproduced in A. myriophyllum. According to Eaton, 

 it is found wild on the walls of a limestone cave at Schurlock's Spring, 

 Jackson County, Florida, and near Ocala, also in Florida, where it grows in 

 tufts at the bottom of pocket-like holes in cavernous lime-rocks, its fronds 

 .spreading flat around the orifice. The fronds, lft. to l |ft. long, are borne on 

 slender, dark brown stalks lin. to 3in. long ; they are produced from a very 

 short, upright rootstock and are tri pinnate (three times divided to the midrib), 



