FEENS A5TD MOSSES. 95 
indusia are forced aside, and ultimately lost, the masses 
become circular, and often confluent, covering the entire 
under surface of the pinnula. 
This pleasing fern has many names. She is the Athyrium 
Jttix-femina of Roth and Presl ; the Athyrium irriguum and 
Icstum of Gray ; Asplenium Jilix-femina of Bernhardi, 
Hooker, Mackay, Don, and Francis ; the P oly podium filix- 
femina and rhceticum of Linn feus, Hudson, and Berken- 
hout. But however named, and wherever growing, 
" Where the rushing stream is longest, 
There the Lady-fern grows strongest;" 
the frequent companion of waterfalls, and mantling many a 
wild dripping rock with luxuriant vegetation, Seek for the 
finest specimens, therefore, in places most congenial to their 
development, and spread them, as previously recommended, 
between sheets of blotting-paper, where they must remain 
till perfectly dry. 
Nor less pleasing in its rocky habitat is the Spear-shaped 
Spleenwort, the Asplenium lanceolatum of all botanists, 
the most local of any of the ferns, and generally believed 
to be confined to the coasts of Merionethshire, Caernarvon- 
shire, Devonshire, and Cornwall, and the neighbourhood of 
Tuubridge Wells. Those, therefore, who desire to obtain 
this interesting species, must, in Kent, seek for them on 
the face of an ivy-mantled cliff near the High Rocks, as 
also on a similar locality on the Rocks at Tunbridge Wells ; 
in Devonshire, Morwell Rocks, on the banks of the rushing 
Tamar, are their favourite growing-places, with similar 
localities beside the Tamar, opposite the Lady Mine ; and 
such as may be seen contiguous to Cann Quarry, on the 
banks of the Plym. Their long, black, slender, and pene- 
trating rhizoma, which run to a great depth, fix them 
securely on rugged declivities near St. Ives, and in the 
Scilly Islands, where, unharmed by tempest, they grow 
