Asplen-ium. 
85 
be disposed to doubt its being correctly placed as an Asplenium : it seems to have much more 
resemblance to a Scolopendrium , with which indeed it has been confounded by more than one 
writer on ferns; but in technical character it is a true Asplenium, belonging to the small 
section Thamnopteris of Presl, which contains only twenty-four species, most of which have quite 
undivided fronds, our plant having them hastate in form, with a triangular terminal lobe and two 
large heart-shaped ones at the base, all being pointed at their extremity. The most striking of 
these entire-leaved Aspleniums is the Bird’s-nest Fern (A. Nidus), a widespread species, native of 
the Himalayas, Japan, and other Eastern regions, extending to Queensland and New Caledonia, 
and found also in the Mauritius and other African islands, where it is called Langue de 
bceuf. This has a dense circle of fronds growing round a vacant centre, in shuttlecock 
fashion ; the fronds are from two to four feet long, and from three to eight inches broad, and 
are of a leathery texture. The largest form of this, which is sometimes regarded as a distinct 
ENLARGED PORTIONS OF FRONDS OF ( a ) SCOLOPENDRIUM HEMIONITIS AND (b) ASPLENIUM HEMIONITIS, SHOWING THE 
DIFFERENCE IN THE FRUCTIFICATION OF THE TWO PLANTS. 
species (A. muscefolium), has fronds sometimes six feet long and a foot broad. Mr. John Smith 
quotes from a Penang correspondent : “ I saw two fine specimens of the Bird’s-nest fern ; each 
had between forty and fifty perfect green leaves ; the average length of the leaves was six feet, 
and from a foot to fourteen inches across in the broadest part. They were growing on each 
side of the doorway of the mansion ; when I was walking up to them I thought they were 
American aloes.” * This has the largest simple entire fronds of all known ferns. 
A. Hemionitis, as has been already observed, is distinguished from all the other European 
species of the genus by its simple fronds. These rise from a short, somewhat creeping, rhizome ; 
the stipes is dark-brown, from four to ten inches long, smooth, and channeled ; the 
fronds are from two to seven inches in length, and about the same in breadth, measured 
across their broadest part ; they are, as has been said above, somewhat spear-shaped, 
with a triangular terminal lobe, which is longer than the two (or sometimes four) large, heart- 
shaped, lateral ones ; they are broadly triangular in outline, of herbaceous texture, light-green 
in colour, and ever-green. The veins are close together, and usually simple, often with a 
narrow line of fruit on each. The plant singularly resembles in general appearance a species 
of Scolopendrium bearing the same specific name, as will be seen if the cut here given of 
Asplenium Hemionitis be compared with the figure of Scolopendrium Hemionitis given in the 
* “Historia Filicum,” p. 330. 
