Lomaria. 
65 
sides, and of a very dark green hue ; they are pinnate and broadest in the middle, narrowing 
towards each end, the central pinnae being three or four inches long, and narrowed into fine 
points. Another and a yet more striking species is L. chilensis, which, as its name denotes, is 
a native of Chili ; this is a handsome plant, with arched dark green fronds, in well-grown 
examples from four to six feet long, and is quite hardy. It will flourish for months in an 
ordinary sitting-room, and, in favourable situations, will grow on an outdoor rockery as far 
north as York. The same frond is often partly barren and partly fertile. 
A plant allied to the last-named species, L. caudata, a native of the Andes of Ecuador, 
lias a curious peculiarity. The barren fronds are very much narrowed towards the apex, 
CAMPTOSORUS RHIZOPHYLLUS. 
where they take root and produce fresh plants, in the same manner as we sometimes see 
the arching shoot of a bramble rooting at its apex ; or, to take another example, resembling 
the Banyan ( Ficus indica), though not in the extent of its growth, if we may accept the 
statement that the celebrated Banyan-tree on the Nerbuddah has three hundred large and 
three thousand smaller stems, and is capable of sheltering three thousand men. This habit, 
by the way, is developed to a singular extent in a little North American fern, Camptosorus 
rliizophylliis (called, on account of this peculiarity, the “Walking Leaf”), of which we give a 
figure. It is a small plant, with evergreen spreading tufted fronds, which are undivided and 
heart-shaped at the base — reminding one somewhat of the common Hart’s-tongue ( Scolo - 
pendrium vulgare ), with which it is sometimes generically associated — but tapering above into 
a long slender elongation, which bends down to the ground and, under favourable circum- 
stances, takes root, giving rise to new plants. These in their turn, on arriving at maturity, 
behave in the same manner, so that, as in the case of the Banyan, it is possible to have two 
13 
