BEAUTIFUL FERNS. 
lOI 
are of a full herbaceous green above, a little paler beneath, 
and of a rather firmly membranaceous, or, in tropical forms, 
of a sub-coriaceous texture. Their average length is from 
one to two feet, but fronds three feet long are occasionally 
seen ; and one very fine example of var. paleaceiim, collected 
in Chiapas, Mexico, by Dr. Ghiesbreght, is three feet and a 
half long, exclusive of the stalk. 
The pinnae are sometimes very numerous; as many as 
forty on each side have been counted on very large fronds, 
but the number is more commonly less than twenty. They 
are lanceolate-acuminate in shape, tapering from a broad base 
to a slender point; in the common form their average 
breadth at the base is half to three-fourths of an inch, but in 
var. incisum they are often fully two inches broad at the base. 
Their length is from three or four inches in the common 
form to six or seven inches in the largest specimens I have 
seen. The midrib of the pinnae is always more or less winged, 
so that the pinnae may be said to be pinnatifid, and the seg- 
ments to be connected by a narrow wing. 
The shape of the segments differs in the several varieties ; 
in the type they are very close together, oblong, with a 
rounded apex, and not very deeply toothed : in var. paleaceum 
they are also closely-placed, and oblong, but mostly truncate 
at the apex; and in var. incisum they are much larger and 
less closely-placed, ovate-lanceolate in shape, and incised with 
toothed lobes along the sides. 
The veins are free, and are forked or alternately divided 
