117 
ASPIDIUM NODOSUM. 
Knotty-Stalked Shield-Fern, 
CRYPTOGAMIA FILICES._Nat. Ord. FILICES. 
N. Char.— xS'orz subrotundi, sparsi. Indusium umbilicatum vel uno latere 
dehiscens. 
Aspidium nodosum; frondibus simplicibus oblongo-lanceolatis acumi- 
natis marginatis basi acutis, soris interrupte lineatim dispositis, stipite 
articulate glabro, caudice repente paleaceo hirsute. 
A. nodosum, Willd. Sp. PI. v. 5. p. 211. 
A. articulatum, Schkuhr, Fil. p. 28. t. 27- (fig. ex Plum.) 
Lingua cervina, pellucida, pedicellis articulatis, Plum. Fil. p. 118. t. 136. 
Caudex long, creeping, flexuose, thicker than a goose-quill, covered with nu- 
merous brown, slender, chaffy scales, and throwing up from its superior 
surface a great number of extremely handsome oblongo-lanceolate, bright 
delicate green, shining, submembranaceous/row J*, from 8 inches to a foot 
in length, suddenly acuminated at the extremity, acute at the base, the 
margins every where entire, thickened and waxy : the midrib is slender 
and glabrous, pale brown, emitting through the substance of the fronds 
very numerous, closely placed, parallel horizontal nerves, most of them 
simple, some of them forked near the base. This frond is placed upon 
a stipes, 2 or 3 inches long, cylindrical, glabrous, dark brown, jointed at 
about the distance of fths of an inch from the base, and swelling at the 
joint. 
Fructification : Sori roundish, arising from the lateral parallel nerves on the 
back of the frond, and disposed in interrupted, flexuose, longitudinal 
lines, mixed with others that are scattered indiscriminately. Involucre 
an orbicular brown scale, darkest in the middle, where, by the under 
side, it is fixed to the frond ; its margins at length turning up by the en- 
largement of the capsules beneath. These capsules are spherical, pedicel- 
late, furnished with an incomplete elastic ring. 
This truly beautiful and curious fern is one of those which I 
mentioned under the description of my Aspidium WallicMi 
as having an articulated stipes to the frond, of which three 
species are described by Willdenow ; and until the indivi- 
VOL. II. 
