164 
Choice Ferns for Amateurs. 
of the edge. Some very distinct varieties, mostly, if not all, 
of natural production, are in cultivation. 
A. monanthemum. 
This exceedingly pretty, greenhouse species is a native 
of the temperate regions of both hemispheres. Its simply- 
pinnate fronds, 1ft. to l^ft. long and barely lin. broad, borne 
on polished chestnut-brown stalks seldom more than 2in. 
Fig. 75, Asplenium monanthemum showing the habit of the 
plant and the mode of proliferation usually found on the 
basal pair of leaflets in fully developed specimens. 
long, are of erect habit and furnished with twenty to thirty 
pairs of stalkless brilliant green leaflets of a leathery texture, 
and disposed horizontally ; these, about ^in. long and Jin. 
deep, are fully developed on one side of the midvein and 
scarcely at all on the other, are rounded at their extremity 
(which, like their upper side, is notched), suddenly narrowed 
at the base, and often eared ; their lower side is more or 
less cut away in a straight or, in the lower ones, decurved 
line, and they are so closely placed as to be in some cases 
almost overlapping. Instead of being proliferous at their 
