BLECHNUAI SPICANT. 53 
I only placed them by the pond-side, looking 
forward to the time when I should find them 
growing in a habitation of their own choice. 
Blechnum spicant, with its curious spikes of fertile 
fronds, is also common in Warwickshire. It 
abounds in the hedges and lanes of Exhall, Fil- 
longley, and many other places, and forms 
handsome, tufts for the lower ranges of a Fernery, 
or for spare corners where wavy green is wanted. 
I have found it with the ends of the fronds divided, 
as in the Hart's Tongue ; but the divisions were 
never more than two, or at the most three, and 
the duration of the peculiar feature is very un- 
certain. I have lately bought of Mr. Ivery, at 
Dorking, a very beautiful variety of the Blechnum 
called ramosum. The end of the frond is tufted. 
I imagine this tuft to have been either made or 
increased by cultivation, as I have never found a 
Fern in the wild state approaching to it more 
nearly than the cleft end I have mentioned. I sent 
to Mr. Ivery at the same time for a Polystichum 
lonchitis, but I received a plant which appears to 
