98 HAXDY BOOK OF 
of the character, as in the figured specimen, where the 
detached pinnula shows the veins and incipient indusia." 
"A third variety grows nearly erect, hut bends over at 
the extremity ; and the entire frond, together with each 
individual pinnula, possesses such a rigid and inflexible 
convexity, that it is next to impossible to flatten the plant 
by pressing it." The form is expressed in the engraving, 
but the convexity cannot be well described. 
The lover of ferns does not readily grow weary while 
observing the exquisite variety of seeds by which they are 
distinguished. In the Spear-shaped Spleenwort, the lateral 
veins are branched, and a branch runs to the extremity of 
each serrature ; the masses of thecse are ainxed near the 
extremity of the veins, and somewhat alternately, one 
branch bearing a mass, and the next being without one : 
3rd Variety. 
each mass is at first elongate and linear, and covered by a 
linear white indusium ; the indusium afterwards disap- 
pears, and the mass becomes nearly circular. 
The Black Spleenwort, Asplenium adiantum-nigrum of 
authors, the A. lucidum of Gray, is universally distributed, 
growing alike in shady places and on rocks open to the sun, 
though attaining its greatest luxuriance when nestling in 
the fissures of old walls, amid the rents of ruins, or in damp, 
shady hedgerows. 
